ity  of 
biern  Re 
•-ary 


VAGABOND 


VAGABONDING    THROUGH 
CHANGING    GERMANY 


THE    GERMAN    SOLDIER    IS    BACK    AT    HOME    AGAIN 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH 
CHANGING  GERMANY 


HARRY    A.    FRANCK 


Illustrated  with  photographs 
by  the  author 


GROSSET  &  DUNLAP  *  Publishers 

by  arrangement  with  The  Century  Company 


Copyright  1920,  by  Harper  &  Brothers 

Printed  In  the  United  States  of  America 

Published  June,  1920 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

FOREWORD xjjj 

I.  ON  TO  THE  RHINE I 

II.  GERMANY  UNDER  THE  AMERICAN  HEEL 24 

III.  THOU  SHALT  NOT  .  .  .  FRATERNIZE 52 

IV.  KNOCKING  ABOUT  THE  OCCUPIED  AREA 68 

V.  GETTING  NEUTRALIZED 84 

VI.  THE  HEART  OF  THE  HUNGRY  EMPIRE 112 

VII.  "GIVE  Us  FOOD!" 137 

VIII.  FAMILY  LIFE  IN  MECKLENBURG 159 

IX.  THUS  SPEAKS  GERMANY 178 

X.  SENTENCED  TO  AMPUTATION 199 

XI.  AN  AMPUTATED  MEMBER 219 

XII.  ON  THE  ROAD  IN  BAVARIA 248 

XIII.  INNS  AND  BYWAYS 271 

XIV.  "FOOD  WEASELS" 290 

XV.  Music  STILL  HAS  CHARMS 321 

XVI.  FLYING  HOMEWARD 343 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

THE  GERMAN  SOLDIER  is  BACK  HOME  AGAIN.     Frontispiece 

FACING 
PAGE 

THE  FORMER  CROWN  PRINCE  IN  HIS  OFFICIAL  FACE,  AT- 
TENDING THE  FUNERAL  OF  A  GERMAN  OFFICER  AND 

COUNT,  WHOSE  MILITARY  ORDERS  ARE  CARRIED  ON  THE 
CUSHION  IN  FRONT 62 

THE  HEIR  TO  THE  TOPPLED  THRONE  WEARING  HIS  UNOF- 
FICIAL AND  MORE  CHARACTERISTIC  EXPRESSION.  .  .  62 

BARGES  OF  AMERICAN  FOOD-STUFFS  ON  THEIR  WAY  UP  THE 

RHINE 63 

BRITISH  TOMMIES  STOWING  THEMSELVES  AWAY  FOR  THE 
NIGHT  ON  BARGES  ANCHORED  NEAR  THE  HOLLAND 
FRONTIER 63 

A  CORNER  OF  THE  EX-KAISER's  PALACE  AFTER  THE  SPARTI- 

CISTS  GOT  DONE  WITH  IT 174 

GERMANS  READING  THE  PEACE-TERMS  BULLETINS  BEFORE 
THE  OFFICE  OF  THE  "LOKAL  ANZEIGER,"  ON  UNTER 
DEN  LINDEN 174 

THE  GERMAN  SOLDIER  is  NOT  ALWAYS  SAVAGE  OF  FACE  .      .     175 

THE  GERMAN'S  ARTISTIC  SENSE  LEADS  HIM  TO  OVERDECO- 

RATE  EVEN  HIS  MERRY-GO-ROUNDS 175 

WOMEN    AND    OXEN — OR    cows — WERE    MORE    NUMEROUS 

THAN  MEN  AND  HORSES  IN  THE  FIELDS 318 

THE  BAVARIAN  PEASANT  DOES  HIS  BAKING  IN  AN  OUTDOOR 

OVEN 318 

WOMEN  CHOPPING  UP  THE  TOPS  OF  EVERGREEN  TREES  FOR 

FUEL  AND  FODDER 319 

THE  GREAT  BREWERIES  OF  KuLMBACH  NEARLY  ALL  STOOD 

IDLE     .  319 


FOREWORD 

I  DID  not  go  into  Germany  with  any  foreformed  hypoth- 
eses as  a  skeleton  for  which  to  seek  flesh;  I  went  to 
report  exactly  what  I  found  there.  I  am  satisfied  that 
there  were  dastardly  acts  during  the  war,  and  conditions 
inside  the  country,  of  which  no  tangible  proofs  remained 
at  the  time  of  my  journey;  but  there  are  other  accusations 
concerning  which  I  am  still  "from  Missouri."  I  am  as 
fully  convinced  as  any  one  that  we  have  done  a  good  deed 
in  helping  to  overthrow  the  nefarious  dynasty  of  Hohen- 
zollernism  and  its  conscienceless  military  clique;  I  believe 
the  German  people  often  acquiesced  in  and  sometimes 
applauded  the  wrong-doings  of  their  former  rulers.  But 
I  cannot  shake  off  the  impression  that  the  more  voiceless 
mass  of  the  nation  were  under  a  spell  not  unlike  that  cast 
by  the  dreadful  dragons  of  their  own  old  legends,  and  that 
we  should  to  a  certain  extent  take  that  fact  into  considera- 
tion in  judging  them  under  their  new  and  more  or  less 
dragonless  condition.  I  propose,  therefore,  that  the  reader 
free  himself  as  much  as  possible  from  his  natural  repulsion 
toward  its  people  before  setting  out  on  this  journey  through 
the  Hungry  Empire,  to  the  end  that  he  may  gaze  about 
him  with  clear,  but  unprejudiced,  eyes.  There  has  been 
too  much  reporting  of  hearsay  evidence,  all  over  the  world, 
during  the  past  few  years,  to  make  any  other  plan  worth 
the  paper. 

HARRY  A.  FRANCK. 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH 
CHANGING  GERMANY 


ON   TO   THE   RHINE 

FOR  those  of  us  not  already  members  of  the  famous 
divisions  that  were  amalgamated  to  form  the  Army  of 
Occupation,  it  was  almost  as  difficult  to  get  into  Germany 
after  the  armistice  as  before.  All  the  A.  E.  F.  seemed  to 
cast  longing  eyes  toward  the  Rhine — all,  at  least,  except 
the  veteran  minority  who  had  their  fill  of  war  and  its 
appendages  for  all  time  to  come,  and  the  optimistic  few  who 
had  serious  hopes  of  soon  looking  the  Statue  of  Liberty 
in  the  face.  But  it  was  easier  to  long  for  than  to  attain. 
In  vain  we  flaunted  our  qualifications,  real  and  self -bestowed, 
before  those  empowered  to  issue  travel  orders.  In  vain  did 
we  prove  that  the  signing  of  the  armistice  had  left  us  duties 
so  slight  that  they  were  not  even  a  fair  return  for  the  salary 
Uncle  Sam  paid  us,  to  say  nothing  of  the  service  we  were 
eager  to  render  him.  G.  H.  Q.  maintained  that  sphinxlike 
silence  for  which  it  had  long  been  notorious.  The  lucky 
Third  Army  seemed  to  have  taken  on  the  characteristics 
of  a  haughty  and  exclusive  club  boasting  an  inexhaustible 
waiting-list. 

What  qualifications,  after  all,  were  those  that  had  as  their 
climax  the  mere  speaking  of  German  ?    Did  not  at  least  the 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

Wisconsin  half  of  the  33d  Division  boast  that  ability  to  a 
man?  As  to  duties,  those  of  fighting  days  were  soon  re- 
placed by  appallingly  unbellicose  tasks  which  carried  us 
still  farther  afield  into  the  placid  wilderness  of  the  SOS 
trebly  distant  from  the  scene  of  real  activity.  But  a  pebble 
dropped  into  the  sea  of  army  routine  does  not  always  fail 
to  bring  ripples,  in  time,  to  the  shore.  Suddenly  one  day, 
when  the  earthquaking  roar  of  barrages  and  the  insistent 
screams  of  air-raid  alertes  had  merged  with  dim  memories 
of  the  past,  the  half-forgotten  request  was  unexpectedly 
answered.  The  flimsy  French  telegraph  form,  languidly 
torn  open,  yielded  a  laconic,  "Report  Paris  prepared  enter 
occupied  territory." 

The  change  from  the  placidity  of  Alps-girdled  Grenoble 
to  Paris,  in  those  days  "capital  of  the  world"  indeed,  was 
abrupt.  The  city  was  seething  with  an  international  life 
such  as  even  she  had  never  before  gazed  upon  in  her  history. 
But  with  the  Rhine  attainable  at  last,  one  was  in  no  mood 
to  tarry  among  the  pampered  officers  dancing  attendance 
on  the  Peace  Conference — least  of  all  those  of  us  who  had 
known  Paris  in  the  simpler,  saner  days  of  old,  or  in  the 
humanizing  times  of  war  strain. 

The  Gare  de  1'Est  was  swirling  with  that  incredible 
tohubohu,  that  headless  confusion  which  had  long  reigned 
at  all  important  French  railway  stations.  Even  in  the  six- 
teen months  since  I  had  first  seen  Paris  under  war  condi- 
tions and  taken  train  at  Chaumont — then  sternly  hidden 
under  the  pseudonym  of  "G.  H.  Q." — that  confusion  had 
trebled.  Stolid  Britons  in  khaki  and  packs  clamped  their 
iron-shod  way  along  the  station  corridors  like  draft-horses. 
Youthful  "Yanks,"  not  so  unlike  the  Tommies  in  garb  as 
in  manner,  fomed  human  whirlpools  about  the  almost  un- 
attainable den  of  the  American  A.  P.  M.  Through  compact 
throngs  of  horizon  blue  squirmed  insistent  poilus,  sputtering 
some  witty  ban  mot  at  every  lunge.  Here  and  there  circled 


ON  TO  THE  RHINE 

eddies  of  Belgian  troopers,  their  cap-tassels  waving  with  the 
rhythm  of  their  march.  Italian  soldiers,  misfitted  in  crum- 
pled and  patched  dirty-gray,  struggled  toward  a  far  corner 
where  stood  two  haughty  carabinieri  directly  imported  from 
their  own  sunny  land,  stubby  rifles,  imposing  three-cornered 
hats,  and  all.  At  every  guichet  or  hole  in  the  wall  waited 
long  queues  of  civilians,  chiefly  French,  with  that  uncom- 
plaining patience  which  a  lifetime,  or  at  least  a  war-time,  of 
standing  in  line  has  given  a  race  that  by  temperament  and 
individual  habit  should  be  least  able  to  display  patience. 
Sprightly  grisettes  tripped  through  every  opening  in  the 
throng,  dodging  collisions,  yet  finding  time  to  throw  a  co- 
quettish smile  at  every  grinning  "Sammy,"  irrespective  of 
rank.  Wan,  yet  sarcastic,  women  of  the  working-class 
buffeted  their  multifarious  bundles  and  progeny  toward  the 
platforms.  Flush-faced  dowagers,  upholstered  in  their 
somber  best  garments,  waddled  hither  and  yon  in  generally 
vain  attempts  to  get  the  scanty  thirty  kilos  of  baggage,  to 
which  military  rule  had  reduced  civilian  passengers,  aboard 
the  train  they  hoped  to  take.  Well-dressed  matrons  labori- 
ously shoved  their  possessions  before  them  on  hand-trucks 
won  after  exertions  that  had  left  their  hats  awry  and  their 
tempers  far  beyond  the  point  that  speech  has  any  meaning, 
some  with  happy,  cynical  faces  at  having  advanced  that  far 
in  the  struggle,  only  to  form  queue  again  behind  the  always 
lengthy  line  of  enforced  patience  which  awaited  the  good 
pleasure  of  baggage-weighers,  baggage-handlers,  baggage- 
checkers,  baggage-payment  receiving-clerks.  Now  and  then 
a  begrimed  and  earth-weary  female  porter,  under  the  official 
cap,  bovinely  pushed  her  laden  truck  into  the  waiting 
throngs,  with  that  supreme  indifference  to  the  rights  and 
comfort  of  others  which  couples  so  strangely  with  the  social 
and  individual  politeness  of  the  French.  Once  in  a  while 
there  appeared  a  male  porter,  also  in  the  insignia  so  familiar 
before  the  war,  sallow  and  fleshless  now  in  comparison 
3  3 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

with  his  female  competitors,  sometimes  one-armed  or  shuf- 
fling on  a  half -useless  leg.  It  would  have  been  hard  to  find 
a  place  where  more  labor  was  expended  for  less  actual 
accomplishment. 

At  the  train-gate  those  in  uniform,  who  had  not  been 
called  upon  to  stand  in  line  for  hours,  if  not  for  days,  to  get 
passports,  to  have  them  stamped  and  visaed,  to  fulfil  a 
score  of  formalities  that  must  have  made  the  life  of  a  civilian 
without  official  backing  not  unlike  that  of  a  stray  cur  in 
old-time  Constantinople,  were  again  specially  favored. 
Once  on  the  platform — but,  alas!  there  was  no  escaping 
the  crush  and  goal-less  helter-skelter  of  the  half-anarchy 
that  had  befallen  the  railway  system  of  France  in  the  last 
supreme  lunge  of  the  war.  The  Nancy-Metz  express — the 
name  still  seemed  strange,  long  after  the  signing  of  the 
armistice — had  already  been  taken  by  storm.  What  shall 
it  gain  a  man  to  have  formed  queue  and  paid  his  franc 
days  before  for  a  reserved  place  if  the  corridors  leading 
to  it  are  so  packed  and  crammed  with  pillar-like  poilus, 
laden  with  equipment  enough  to  stock  a  hardware-store, 
with  pack-and-rifle-bearing  American  doughboys,  with  the 
few  lucky  civilians  who  reached  the  gates  early  enough  to 
worm  their  way  into  the  interstices  left,  that  nothing  short 
of  machine-gun  or  trench-mortar  can  clear  him  an  entrance 
to  it? 

Wise,  however,  is  the  man  who  uses  his  head  rather  than 
his  shoulders,  even  in  so  unintellectual  a  matter  as  boarding 
a  train.  About  a  parlor-coach,  defended  by  gendarmes, 
lounged  a  half-dozen  American  officers  with  that  casual, 
self-satisfied  air  of  those  who  "know  the  ropes"  and  are 
therefore  able  to  bide  their  time  in  peace.  A  constant 
stream  of  harried,  disheveled,  bundle-laden,  would-be  pas- 
sengers swept  down  upon  the  parlor-car  entrance,  only  to 
be  politely  but  forcibly  balked  in  their  design  by  the  guards- 
men with  an  oily,  "Reserved  for  the  French  Staff."  Thus 

4 


ON  TO  THE  RHINE 

is  disorder  wont  to  breed  intrigue.  The  platform  clock  had 
raised  its  hands  to  strike  the  hour  of  departure  when  the 
lieutenant  who  had  offered  to  share  his  previous  experience 
with  me  sidled  cautiously  up  to  a  gendarme  and  breathed 
in  his  ear  something  that  ended  with  "American  Secret 
Service."  The  words  themselves  produced  little  more  effect 
than  there  was  truth  in  the  whispered  assertion.  But  the 
crisp  new  five-franc  note  deftly  transferred  from  lieutenant 
to  gendarme  brought  as  quick  results  as  could  the  whisper 
of  "bakshish"  in  an  Arab  ear.  We  sprang  lightly  up  the 
guarded  steps  and  along  a  corridor  as  clear  of  humanity 
as  No  Man's  Land  on  a  sunny  noonday.  Give  the  French 
another  year  of  war,  with  a  few  more  millions  of  money- 
sowing  Allies  scattered  through  the  length  and  breadth  of 
their  fair  land,  and  the  back-handed  slip  of  a  coin  may  be- 
come as  universal  an  open  sesame  as  in  the  most  tourist- 
haunted  corner  of  Naples. 

Another  banknote,  as  judiciously  applied,  unlocked  the 
door  of  a  compartment  that  showed  quite  visible  evidence 
of  having  escaped  the  public  wear  and  tear  of  war,  due,  no 
doubt,  to  the  protection  afforded  it  by  those  magic  words, 
"French  Staff."  But  when  it  had  quickly  filled  to  its  quota 
of  six,  one  might  have  gazed  in  vain  at  the  half-dozen 
American  uniforms,  girdled  by  the  exclusive  "Sam  Browne," 
for  any  connection  with  the  French,  staff  or  otherwise, 
than  that  which  binds  all  good  allies  together.  The  train 
glided  imperceptibly  into  motion,  yet  not  without  carrying 
to  our  ears  the  suppressed  grunt  of  a  hundred  stomachs 
compressed  by  as  many  hard  and  unwieldy  packs  in  the 
coach  ahead,  and  ground  away  into  the  night  amid  the 
shouts  of  anger,  despair,  and  pretended  derision  of  the 
throng  of  would-be  travelers  left  behind  on  the  platform. 

"Troubles  over,"  said  my  companion,  as  we  settled  down 
to  such  comfort  as  a  night  in  a  European  train  compartment 
affords.  "Of  course  we'll  be  hours  late,  and  there  will  be 

5 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

a  howling  mob  at  every  station  as  long  as  we  are  in  France. 
But  once  we  get  to  Metz  the  trains  will  have  plenty  of  room; 
they'll  be  right  on  time,  and  all  this  mob-fighting  will  be 
over." 

"Propaganda,"  I  mused,  noting  that  in  spite  of  his  man- 
ner,  as  American  as  his  uniform,  the  lieutenant  spoke  with 
a  hint  of  Teutonic  accent.  We  had  long  been  warned  to 
see  propaganda  by  the  insidious  Hun  in  any  suggestion  of 
criticism,  particularly  in  the  unfavorable  comparison  of 
anything  French  with  anything  German.  Did  food  cost 
more  in  Paris  than  on  the  Rhine?  Propaganda!  Did  some 
one  suggest  that  the  American  soldiers,  their  fighting  task 
finished,  felt  the  surge  of  desire  to  see  their  native  shores 
again?  Propaganda!  Did  a  French  waiter  growl  at  the 
inadequacy  of  a  lo-per-cent.  tip?  The  sale  Boche  had 
surely  been  propaganding  among  the  dish-handlers. 

The  same  subsidized  hand  that  had  admitted  us  had 
locked  the  parlor-car  again  as  soon  as  the  last  staff  pass — 
issued  by  the  Banque  de  France — had  been  collected. 
Though  hordes  might  beat  with  enraged  fists,  heels,  and 
sticks  on  the  doors  and  windows,  not  even  a  corridor  lounger 
could  get  aboard  to  disturb  our  possible  slumbers.  To 
the  old  and  infirm — which  in  military  jargon  stands  for  all 
those  beyond  the  age  of  thirty — even  the  comfortably  filled 
compartment  of  a  French  wagon  de  luxe  is  not  an  ideal  place 
in  which  to  pass  a  long  night.  But  as  often  as  we  awoke 
to  uncramp  our  legs  and  cramp  them  again  in  another  posi- 
tion, the  solace  in  the  thought  of  what  that  ride  might  have 
been,  standing  rigid  in  a  car  corridor,  swallowing  and 
reswallowing  the  heated  breath  of  a  half-dozen  nationalities, 
jolted  and  compressed  by  sharp-cornered  packs  and  poilu 
hardware,  unable  to  disengage  a  hand  long  enough  to  raise 
handkerchief  to  nose,  lulled  us  quickly  to  sleep  again. 

The  train  was  hours  late.  All  trains  are  hours  late  in 
overcrowded,  overburdened  France,  with  her  long  unre- 

6 


ON  TO  THE  RHINE 

paired  lines  of  communication,  her  depleted  railway  per- 
sonnel, her  insufficient,  war-worn  rolling-stock,  struggling 
to  carry  a  traffic  that  her  days  of  peace  never  attempted. 
It  was  mid-morning  when  we  reached  Nancy,  though  the 
time-table  had  promised — to  the  inexperienced  few  who 
still  put  faith  in  French  horaires — to  bring  us  there  while 
it  was  yet  night.  Here  the  key  that  had  protected  us  for 
more  than  twelve  hours  was  found,  or  its  counterpart  pro- 
duced, by  the  station-master.  Upon  our  return  from 
squandering  the  equivalent  of  a  half-dollar  in  the  station 
buffet  for  three  inches  of  stale  and  gravelly  war-bread 
smeared  with  something  that  might  have  been  axle-grease 
mixed  with  the  sweepings  of  a  shoe-shop,  and  the  privilege 
of  washing  it  down  with  a  black  liquid  that  was  called  coffee 
for  want  of  a  specific  name,  the  storm  had  broken.  It  was 
only  by  extraordinary  luck,  combined  with  strenuous  physi- 
cal exertion,  that  we  manhandled  our  way  through  the 
horizon-blue  maelstrom  that  had  surged  into  every  avail- 
able corner,  in  brazen  indifference  to  "staff"  privileges, 
back  to  the  places  which  a  companion,  volunteering  for 
that  service,  had  kept  for  us  by  dint  of  something  little 
short  of  actual  warfare. 

From  the  moment  of  crossing,  not  long  after,  the  frontier 
between  that  was  France  in  1914  and  German  Lorraine 
things  seemed  to  take  on  a  new  freedom  of  movement, 
an  orderliness  that  had  become  almost  a  memory.  The 
train  was  still  the  same,  yet  it  lost  no  more  time.  With  a 
subtle  change  in  faces,  garb, and  architecture,  plainly  evident, 
though  it  is  hard  to  say  exactly  in  what  it  consisted,  came 
a  smoothness  that  had  long  been  divorced  from  travel  by 
train.  There  was  a  calmness  in  the  air  as  we  pulled  into 
Metz  soon  after  noon  which  recalled  pre-war  stations. 
The  platforms  were  ample,  at  least  until  our  train  began 
to  disgorge  the  incredible  multitude  that  had  somehow 
found  existing-place  upon  it.  The  station  gates  gave  exit 

7 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

quickly,  though  every  traveler  was  compelled  to  show  his 
permission  for  entering  the  city.  The  aspect  of  the  place 
was  still  German.  Along  the  platform  were  ranged  those 
awe-inspiring  beings  whom  the  uninitiated  among  us  took 
to  be  German  generals  or  field-officers  instead  of  mere 
railway  employees;  wherever  the  eye  roamed  some  species 
of  Verboten  gazed  sternly  upon  us.  But  the  iron  hand  had 
lost  its  grip.  Partly  for  convenience'  sake,  partly  in  retalia- 
tion for  a  closely  circumscribed  journey,  years  before, 
through  the  land  of  the  Kaiser,  I  had  descended  from  the 
train  by  a  window.  What  horror  such  undisciplined  bar- 
barism would  have  evoked  in  those  other  years!  Now 
the  heavy  faces  under  the  pseudo-generals'  caps  not  only 
gave  no  grimace  of  protest,  presaging  sterner  measures; 
not  even  a  shadow  of  surprise  flickered  across  them.  The 
grim  Verboten  signs  remained  placidly  unmoved,  like  dicta- 
tors shorn  of  power  by  some  force  too  high  above  to  make 
any  show  of  feelings  worth  while. 

The  French  had  already  come  to  Metz.  One  recognized 
that  at  once  in  the  endless  queues  that  formed  at  every 
window.  One  was  doubly  sure  of  it  at  sight  of  a  tempera- 
ment-harassed official  in  horizon  blue  floundering  in  a 
tempest  of  paperasses,  a  whirlwind  of  papers,  ink,  and  unful- 
filled intentions,  behind  the  wicket,  earnestly  bent  on 
quickly  doing  his  best,  yet  somehow  making  nine  motions 
where  one  would  have  sufficed.  But  most  of  the  queues 
melted  away  more  rapidly  than  was  the  Parisian  custom; 
and  as  we  moved  nearer,  to  consign  our  baggage  or  to  buy 
our  tickets,  we  noted  that  the  quickened  progress  was  due 
to  a  slow  but  methodically  moving  German  male,  still  in 
his  field  gray.  He  had  come  to  the  meeting-place  of  tem- 
perament and  Ordnung,  or  system.  Both  have  their  value, 
but  there  are  times  and  places  for  both. 

Among  the  bright  hopes  that  had  gleamed  before  me 
since  turning  my  face  toward  the  fallen  enemy  was  a  hot 

8 


ON  TO  THE  RHINE 

bath.  To  attain  so  unwonted  a  luxury  in  France  was, 
in  the  words  of  its  inhabitants,  "toute  une  histoire" — in 
fact,  an  all  but  endless  story.  In  the  first  place,  the  ex- 
traordinary desire  must  await  a  Saturday.  In  the  second, 
the  heater  must  not  have  fallen  out  of  practice  during  its 
week  of  disuse.  Thirdly,  one  must  make  sure  that  no 
other  guest  on  the  same  floor  had  laid  the  same  soapy 
plans  within  an  hour  of  one's  own  chosen  time.  Fourthly, 
one  must  have  put  up  at  a  hotel  that  boasted  a  bathtub, 
in  itself  no  simple  feat  for  those  forced  to  live  on  their  own 
honest  earnings.  Fifthly — but  life  is  too  short  and  paper 
too  expensive  to  enumerate  all  the  incidental  details  that 
must  be  brought  together  in  harmonious  concordance  before 
one  actually  and  physically  got  a  real  hot  bath  in  France, 
after  her  four  years  and  more  of  struggle  to  ward  off  the 
Hun. 

But  in  Germany — or  was  it  only  subtle  propaganda 
again,  the  persistent  rumor  that  hot  baths  were  of  daily 
occurrence  and  within  reach  of  the  popular  purse?  At 
any  rate,  I  took  stock  enough  in  it  to  let  anticipation  play 
on  the  treat  in  store,  once  I  were  settled  in  Germany.  Then 
all  at  once  my  eyes  were  caught  by  two  magic  words  above 
an  arrow  pointing  down  the  station  corridor.  Incredible! 
Some  one  had  had  the  bright  idea  of  providing  a  means, 
right  here  in  the  station,  of  removing  the  grime  of  travel 
at  once. 

A  clean  bathroom,  its  "hot"  water  actually  hot,  was 
all  ready  in  a  twinkling — all,  that  is,  except  the  soap. 
There  was  nothing  in  the  decalogue,  rumor  had  it,  that 
the  Germans  would  not  violate  for  a  bar  of  soap.  Luckily, 
the  hint  had  reached  me  before  our  commissary  in  Paris 
was  out  of  reach.  Yet,  soap  or  no  soap,  the  population 
managed  to  keep  itself  as  presentable  as  the  rank  and  file 
of  civilians  in  the  land  behind  us.  The  muscular  young 
barber  who  kept  shop  a  door  or  two  beyond  was  as  spick 

9 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

and  span  as  any  to  whom  I  remembered  intrusting  my 
personal  appearance  in  all  France.  He  had,  too,  that 
indefinable  something  which  in  army  slang  is  called 
"snappy,"  and  I  settled  down  in  his  chair  with  the  genuine 
relaxation  that  comes  with  the  ministrations  of  one  who 
knows  his  trade.  He  answered  readily  enough  a  question 
put  in  French,  but  he  answered  it  in  German,  which  brought 
up  another  query,  this  time  in  his  mother- tongue. 

"Nein,"  he  replied,  "I  am  French  through  and  through, 
'way  back  for  generations.  My  people  have  always  been 
born  in  Lorraine,  but  none  of  us  younger  ones  speak  much 
French." 

Yes,  he  had  been  a  German  soldier.  He  had  worn  the 
feldgrau  more  than  two  years,  in  some  of  the  bloodiest 
battles  on  the  western  front,  the  last  against  Americans. 
It  seemed  uncanny  to  have  him  flourishing  a  razor  about 
the  throat  of  a  man  whom,  a  few  weeks  before,  he  had 
been  in  duty  bound  to  slay. 

"And  do  you  think  the  people  of  Metz  really  like  the 
change?"  I  asked,  striving  to  imply  by  the  tone  that  I 
preferred  a  genuine  answer  to  a  diplomatic  evasion. 

"/a,  sehen  Sie,"  he  began,  slowly,  rewhetting  his  razor, 
"I  am  French.  My  family  has  always  looked  forward 
to  the  day  when  France  should  come  back  to  us.  A-aber  " — 
in  the  slow  guttural  there  was  a  hint  of  disillusionment — 
"they  are  a  wise  people,  the  French,  but  they  have  no 
Organizationsinn — so  little  idea  of  order,  of  discipline. 
They  make  so  much  work  of  simple  matters.  And  they  have 
such  curious  rules.  In  the  house  next  to  me  lived  a  man 
whose  parents  were  Parisians.  His  ancestors  were  all 
French.  He  speaks  perfect  French  and  very  poor  German. 
But  his  grandfather  was  born,  by  chance,  in  Germany, 
and  they  have  driven  him  out  of  Lorraine,  while  I,  who 
barely  understand  French  and  have  always  spoken  Ger- 
man, may  remain  because  my  ancestors  were  born  here!" 

10 


ON  TO  THE  RHINE 

"Yet,  on  the  whole,  Metz  would  rather  belong  to  France 
than  to  Germany?" 

Like  all  perfect  barber-conversationalists  he  spaced  his 
words  in  rhythm  with  his  work,  never  losing  a  stroke: 

"We  have  much  feeling  for  France.  There  was  much 
flag-waving,  much  singing  of  the  'Marseillaise.'  But  as 
to  what  we  would  rather  do — what  have  we  to  say  about  it, 
after  all? 

"Atrocities?  Yes,  I  have  seen  some  things  that  should 
not  have  been.  It  is  war.  There  are  brutes  in  all  coun- 
tries. I  have  at  least  seen  a  German  colonel  shoot  one  of 
his  own  men  for  killing  a  wounded  French  soldier  on  the 
ground." 

The  recent  history  of  Metz  was  plainly  visible  in  her 
architecture — ambitious,  extravagant,  often  tasteless  build- 
ings shouldering  aside  the  humble  remnants  of  a  French 
town  of  the  Middle  Ages.  In  spite  of  the  floods  of  horizon 
blue  in  her  streets  the  atmosphere  of  the  city  was  still 
Teutonic — heavy,  a  trifle  sour,  in  no  way  chic.  The  skaters 
down  on  a  lake  before  the  promenade  not  only  spoke  Ger- 
man; they  had  not  even  the  Latin  grace  of  movement. 
Yet  theie  were  signs  to  remind  one  that  the  capital  of 
Lorraine  had  changed  hands.  It  came  first  in  petty  little 
alterations,  hastily  and  crudely  made — a  paper  "Entree" 
pasted  over  an  "Eingang"  cut  in  stone;  a  signboard  point- 
ing "A  Treves"  above  an  older  one  reading  "Nach  Trier." 
A  strip  of  white  cloth  along  the  front  of  a  great  brownstone 
building  that  had  always  been  the  "  Kaiserliches  Postamt" 
announced  "Republique  Frangaise;  Postes,  Telegraphes, 
Telephones."  Street  names  had  not  been  changed;  they 
had  merely  been  translated — "  Rheinstrasse "  had  become 
also  "Rue  du  Rhin."  The  French  were  making  no  secret 
of  their  conviction  that  Metz  had  returned  to  them  for  all 
time.  They  had  already  begun  to  make  permanent  changes. 
Yet  many  mementoes  of  the  paternal  government  that  had 

ii 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

so  hastily  fled  to  the  eastward  were  still  doing  duty  as  if 
nothing  out  of  the  ordinary  had  happened.  The  dark- 
blue  post-boxes  still  announced  themselves  as  "Briefkasten," 
and  bore  the  fatherly  reminder,  ' '  Briefmarken  und  Addresse 
nicht  vergessen"  ("Do  not  forget  stamps  and  address"). 
At  least  the  simple  public  could  be  trusted  to  write  the 
letter  without  its  attention  being  called  to  that  necessity. 
Where  crowds  were  wont  to  collect,  detailed  directions 
stared  them  in  the  face,  instead  of  leaving  them  to  guess 
and  scramble,  as  is  too  often  the  case  among  our  lovable 
but  temperamental  allies. 

A  large  number  of  shops  were  "Consigne  a  la  Troupe," 
which  would  have  meant  "Out  of  Bounds"  to  the  British 
or  "Off  Limits"  to  our  own  soldiers.  Others  were  merely 
branded  "Maison  Allemande,"  leaving  Allied  men  in 
uniform  permission  to  trade  there,  if  they  chose.  It  might 
have  paid,  too,  for  nearly  all  of  them  had  voluntarily  added 
the  confession  "Liquidation  Totale."  One  such  proprietor 
announced  his  "Maison  Principale  a  Strasbourg."  He 
certainly  was  "S.  O.  L." — which  is  armyese  for  something 
like  "Sadly  out  of  luck."  In  fact,  the  German  residents 
were  being  politely  but  firmly  crowded  eastward.  As 
their  clearance  sales  left  an  empty  shop  a  French  merchant 
quickly  moved  in,  and  the  Boche  went  home  to  set  his 
alarm-clock.  The  departing  Hun  was  forbidden  to  carry 
with  him  more  than  two  thousand  marks  as  an  adult,  or 
five  hundred  for  each  child — and  der  Deutsche  Gott  knows 
a  mark  is  not  much  money  nowadays! — and  he  was  obliged 
to  take  a  train  leaving  at  5  A.M. 

On  the  esplanade  of  Metz  there  once  stood  a  bronze 
equestrian  statue  of  Friedrich  III,  gazing  haughtily  down 
upon  his  serfs.  Now  he  lay  broken-headed  in  the  soil 
beneath,  under  the  horse  that  thrust  stiff  legs  aloft,  as  on 
a  battle-field.  So  rude  and  sudden  had  been  his  downfall 
that  he  had  carried  with  him  one  side  of  the  massive  stone- 
is 


ON  TO  THE  RHINE 

and-chain  balustrade  that  had  long  protected  his  pedestal 
from  plebeian  contact.  Farther  on  there  was  a  still  more 
impressive  sign  of  the  times.  On  the  brow  of  a  knoll  above 
the  lake  an  immense  bronze  of  the  late  Kaiser — as  he  fain 
would  have  looked — had  been  replaced  by  the  statue  of  a 
poilu,  hastily  daubed,  yet  artistic  for  all  that,  with  the 
careless  yet  sure  lines  of  a  Rodin.  The  Kaiser's  gaze — 
strangely  enough — had  been  turned  toward  Germany,  and 
the  bombastic  phrase  of  dedication  had,  with  French  sense 
of  the  fitness  of  things,  been  left  untouched — "Errichtet  von 
seinem  dankbaren  Volke."  Even  "his  grateful  people," 
strolling  past  now  and  then  in  pairs  or  groups,  could  not 
suppress  the  suggestion  of  a  smile  at  the  respective  positions 
of  dedication  and  poilu.  For  the  latter  gazed  toward  his 
beloved  France,  with  those  far-seeing  eyes  of  all  his  tribe, 
and  beneath  him  was  his  war  slogan,  purged  at  last  of  the 
final  three  letters  he  had  bled  so  freely  to  efface — "On 
les  A." 

A  German  ex-soldier,  under  the  command  of  an  American 
private,  rechecked  my  trunk  in  less  than  a  minute.  The 
train  was  full,  but  it  was  not  overcrowded.  Travelers 
boarded  it  in  an  orderly  manner;  there  was  no  erratic 
scrambling,  no  impassable  corridor.  We  left  on  time  and 
maintained  that  advantage  to  the  end  of  the  journey.  It 
seemed  an  anachronism  to  behold  a  train-load  of  American 
soldiers  racing  on  and  on  into  Germany,  perfectly  at  ease 
behind  a  German  crew  that  did  its  best  to  make  the  trip 
as  comfortable  and  swift  as  possible — and  succeeded  far 
beyond  the  expectations  of  the  triumphant  invaders.  In 
the  first-class  coach,  "Reserve  pour  Militaires,"  which  had 
been  turned  over  to  us  under  the  terms  of  the  armistice, 
all  was  in  perfect  working  order.  Half  voiceless  with  a 
cold  caught  on  the  unheated  French  trains  on  which  I  had 
shivered  my  way  northward  from  Grenoble,  I  found  this 
one  too  hot.  The  opening  of  a  window  called  attention 

13 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

to  the  fact  that  Germany  had  been  obliged  to  husband 
her  every  scrap  of  leather;  the  window- tackle  was  now  of 
woven  hemp.  One  detail  suggested  bad  faith  in  fulfilling 
the  armistice  terms— the  heavy  red-velvet  stuff  covering 
the  seats  had  been  hastily  slashed  off,  leaving  us  to  sit  on 
the  burlap  undercoverings.  Probably  some  undisciplined 
railway  employee  had  decided  to  levy  on  the  enemy  while 
there  was  yet  time  for  the  material  of  a  gown  for  his  daugh- 
ter or  his  Madchen.  Later  journeys  showed  many  a  seat 
similarly  plundered. 

A  heavy,  wet  snow  was  falling  when  we  reached  Treves 
— or  Trier,  as  you  choose.  It  was  late,  and  I  planned  to 
dodge  into  the  nearest  hotel.  I  had  all  but  forgotten  that 
I  was  no  longer  among  allies,  but  in  the  land  of  the  enemy. 
The  American  M.  P.  who  demanded  my  papers  at  the  sta- 
tion gate,  as  his  fellows  did,  even  less  courteously,  of  all 
civilians,  ignored  the  word  "hotel"  and  directed  me  to  the 
billeting-office.  Salutes  were  snapped  at  me  wherever  the 
street-lamps  made  my  right  to  them  visible.  The  town 
was  brown  with  American  khaki,  as  well  as  white  with  the 
sodden  snow.  At  the  baize-covered  desk  of  what  had 
evidently  once  been  a  German  court-room  a  commissioned 
Yank  glanced  at  my  orders,  ran  his  finger  down  a  long 
ledger  page,  scrawled  a  line  on  a  billeting  form,  and  tossed 
it  toward  me. 

Beyond  the  Porta  Nigra,  the  ancient  Roman  gate  that 
the  would-be  Romans  of  to-day — or  yesterday — have  so 
carefully  preserved,  I  lost  my  way  in  the  blinding  whiteness. 
A  German  civilian  was  approaching.  I  caught  myself 
wondering  if  he  would  refuse  to  answer,  and  whether  I 
should  stand  on  my  dignity  as  one  of  his  conquerors  if  he 
did.  He  seemed  flattered  that  he  should  have  been  appealed 
to  for  information.  He  waded  some  distance  out  of  his 
way  to  leave  me  at  the  door  I  sought,  and  on  the  way  he 
bubbled  over  with  the  excellence  of  the  American  soldier, 

14 


ON  TO  THE  RHINE 

with  now  and  then  a  hint  at  the  good  fortune  of  Trier  in 
not  being  occupied  by  the  French  or  British.  When  he 
had  left  me  I  rang  the  door-bell  several  times  without  result. 
I  decided  to  adopt  a  sterner  attitude,  and  pounded  lustily 
on  the  massive  outer  door.  At  length  a  window  above 
opened  and  a  querulous  female  voice  demanded,  "Wer 
ist  da?"  To  be  sure,  it  was  near  midnight;  but  was  I 
not  for  once  demanding,  rather  than  requesting,  admit- 
tance? I  strove  to  give  my  voice  the  peremptoriness  with 
which  a  German  officer  would  have  answered,  "American 
lieutenant,  billeted  here." 

"Ich  komm'  gleich  hinunter"  came  the  quick  reply,  in 
almost  honeyed  tones. 

The  household  had  not  yet  gone  to  bed.  It  consisted 
of  three  women,  of  as  many  generations,  the  youngest 
of  whom  had  come  down  to  let  me  in.  Before  we  reached 
the  top  of  the  stairs  she  began  to  show  solicitude  for  my 
comfort.  The  mother  hastened  to  arrange  the  easiest 
chair  for  me  before  the  fire;  the  grandmother  doddered 
toothlessly  at  me  from  her  corner  behind  the  stove;  the 
family  cat  was  already  caressing  my  boot-tops. 

"You  must  have  something  to  eat!"  cried  the  mother. 

"Don't  trouble,"  I  protested.     "I  had  dinner  at  Metz." 

"Yes,  but  that  was  four  hours  ago.  Some  milk  and 
eggs,  at  least?" 

"Eggs,"  I  queried,  "and  milk?  I  thought  there  were 
none  in  Germany." 

"Dock,"  she  replied,  with  a  sage  glance,  "if  you  know 
where  to  look  for  them,  and  can  get  there.  I  have  just 
been  out  in  the  country.  I  came  on  the  same  train  you 
did.  But  it  is  hard  to  get  much.  Every  one  goes  out 
scouring  the  country  now.  And  one  must  have  money. 
An  egg,  one  mark!  Before  the  war  they  were  never  so 
much  a  dozen." 

The  eggs  were  fresh  enough,  but  the  milk  was  decidedly 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

watery,  and  in  place  of  potatoes  there  was  some  sort  of 
jellied  turnip,  wholly  tasteless.  While  I  ate,  the  daughter 
talked  incessantly,  the  mother  now  and  then  adding  a 
word,  the  grandmother  nodding  approval  at  intervals, 
with  a  wrinkled  smile.  All  male  members  of  the  family 
had  been  lost  in  the  war,  unless  one  counts  the  second 
fiance"  of  the  daughter,  now  an  officer  "over  in  Germany," 
as  she  put  it.  When  I  started  at  the  expression  she  smiled : 

"Yes,  here  we  are  in  America,  you  see.  Lucky  for  us, 
too.  There  will  never  be  any  robbery  and  anarchy  here, 
and  over  there  it  will  get  worse.  Anyhow,  we  don't  feel 
that  the  Americans  are  real  enemies." 

"No?  "I  broke  in.   "Why  not?" 

"Ach!"  she  said,  evasively,  throwing  her  head  on  one 
side,  "they  .  .  .  they  .  .  .  Now  if  it  had  been  the 
French,  or  the  British,  who  had  occupied  Trier  ...  At 
first  the  Americans  were  very  easy  on  us — too  easy"  (one 
felt  the  German  religion  of  discipline  in  the  phrase).  "They 
arrived  on  December  first,  at  noon,  and  by  evening  every 
soldier  had  a  sweetheart.  The  newspapers  raged.  It  was 
shameful  for  a  girl  to  give  herself  for  a  box  of  biscuits, 
or  a  cake  of  chocolate,  or  even  a  bar  of  soap!  But  they 
had  been  hungry  for  years,  and  not  even  decency,  to  say 
nothing  of  patriotism,  can  stand  out  against  continual 
hunger.  Besides,  the  war — ach!  I  don't  know  what  has 
come  over  the  German  woman  since  the  war! 

"But  the  Americans  are  stricter  now,"  she  continued, 
"and  there  are  new  laws  that  forbid  us  to  talk  to  the  soldiers 
— on  the  street  ..." 

"German  laws?"  I  interrupted,  thoughtlessly,  for,  to 
tell  the  truth,  my  mind  was  wandering  a  bit,  thanks  either 
to  the  heat  of  the  porcelain  stove  or  to  her  garrulousness, 
equal  to  that  of  any  m£ridionale  from  southern  France. 

"Nein,  it  was  ordered  by  General  Pershing."  (She 
pronounced  it  "Pear  Shang.") 

16 


ON  TO  THE  RHINE 

Stupid  of  me,  but  my  change  from  the  land  of  an  ally 
to  that  of  an  enemy  had  been  so  abrupt,  and  the  evidence 
of  enmity  so  slight,  that  I  had  scarcely  realized  it  was  our 
own  commander-in-chief  who  was  now  reigning  in  Trier. 
I  covered  my  retreat  by  abruptly  putting  a  question  about 
the  Kaiser.  Demigod  that  I  had  always  found  him  in  the 
popular  mind  in  Germany,  I  felt  sure  that  here,  at  least, 
I  should  strike  a  vibrant  chord.  To  my  surprise,  she 
screwed  up  her  face  into  an  expression  of  disgust  and  drew 
a  finger  across  her  throat. 

"That  for  the  Kaiser!"  she  snapped.  "Of  course,  he 
wasn't  entirely  to  blame;  and  he  wanted  to  quit  in  nine- 
teen-sixteen.  But  the  rich  people,  the  Krupps  and  the  like, 
hadn't  made  enough  yet.  He  didn't,  at  least,  need  to  run 
away.  If  he  had  stayed  in  Germany,  as  he  should  have,  no 
one  would  have  hurt  him;  no  living  man  would  have 
touched  a  hair  of  his  head.  Our  Crown  Prince?  Ach!  The 
Crown  Prince  is  leichtsinnig  (light-minded)." 

"Of  course,  it  is  natural  that  the  British  and  French 
should  treat  us  worse  than  the  Americans,"  she  went  on, 
unexpectedly  harking  back  to  an  earlier  theme.  "They 
used  to  bomb  us  here  in  Trier,  the  last  months.  I  have 
often  had  to  help  Grossmutter  down  into  the  cellar" — 
Grossmutter  smirked  confirmation — "but  that  was  nothing 
compared  to  what  our  brave  airmen  did  to  London  and 
Paris.  Why,  in  Paris  they  killed  hundreds  night  after 
night,  and  the  people  were  so  wild  with  fright  they  trampled 
one  another  to  death  in  trying  to  find  refuge  ..." 

"I  was  in  Paris  myself  during  all  the  big  raids,  as  well 
as  the  shelling  by  'Grosse  Bertha,'"  I  protested,  "and  I 
assure  you  it  was  hardly  as  bad  as  that." 

"Ah,  but  they  cover  up  those  things  so  cleverly,"  she 
replied,  quickly,  not  in  the  slightest  put  out  by  the  con- 
tradiction. 

"There  is  one  thing  the  Americans  do  not  do  well,"  she 

17 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

rattled  on.  "They  do  not  make  the  rich  and  the  influential 
contribute  their  fair  share.  They  make  all  the  people  (das 
Volk)  billet  as  many  as  their  houses  will  hold,  but  the  rich 
and  the  officials  arrange  to  take  in  very  few,  in  their  big 
houses.  And  it  is  the  same  as  before  the  war  ended,  with 
the  food.  The  wealthy  still  have  plenty  of  food  that  they 
get  through  Schleichhandel,  tricky  methods,  and  the  Ameri- 
cans do  not  search  them.  Children  and  the  sick  are  sup- 
posed to  get  milk,  and  a  bit  of  good  bread,  or  zwiebach. 
Yet  Grossmutter  here  is  so  ill  she  cannot  digest  the  war-bread, 
and  still  she  must  eat  it,  for  the  rich  grab  all  the  better 
bread,  and,  as  we  have  no  influence,  we  cannot  get  her 
what  the  rules  allow." 

I  did  not  then  know  enough  of  the  American  adminis- 
tration of  occupied  territory  to  remind  her  that  food- 
rationing  was  still  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  native  offi- 
cials. I  did  know,  however,  how  prone  conquering  armies 
are  to  keep  up  the  old  inequalities;  how  apt  the  conqueror 
is  to  call  upon  the  "influential  citizens"  to  take  high  places 
in  the  local  administration;  and  that  "influential  citizens" 
are  not  infrequently  so  because  they  have  been  the  most 
grasping,  the  most  selfish,  even  if  not  actually  dishonest. 

Midnight  had  long  since  struck  when  I  was  shown  into 
the  guest-room,  with  a  triple ' '  Gute  Nacht.  Schlajen  Sie  wohl. ' ' 
The  deep  wooden  bedstead  was,  of  course,  a  bit  too  short, 
and  the  triangular  bolster  and  two  large  pillows,  taking  the 
place  of  the  French  round  traversin,  had  to  be  reduced  to 
American  tastes.  But  the  room  was  speckless;  several 
minor  details  of  comfort  had  been  arranged  with  motherly 
care,  and  as  I  slid  down  under  the  feather  tick  that  does 
duty  as  quilt  throughout  Germany  my  feet  encountered — 
a  hot  flat-iron.  I  had  not  felt  so  old  since  the  day  I  first 
put  on  long  trousers ! 

My  last  conscious  reflection  was  a  wonder  whether  the 
good  citizens  of  Trier  were  not,  perhaps,  "stringing"  us  a 

18 


ON  TO  THE  RHINE 

bit  with  their  aggressive  show  of  friendliness,  of  contentment 
at  our  presence.  Some  of  it  had  been  a  bit  too  thick.  Yet, 
as  I  thought  back  over  the  evening,  I  could  not  recall  a 
word,  a  tone,  a  look,  that  gave  the  slightest  basis  to  suppose 
that  my  three  hostesses  were  not  the  simple,  frank,  docile 
Volk  they  gave  every  outward  evidence  of  being. 

The  breakfast  next  morning  consisted  of  coffee  and  bread, 
with  more  of  the  tasteless  turnip  jelly.  All  three  of  the 
articles,  however,  were  only  in  the  name  what  they  pur- 
ported to  be,  each  being  Ersatz,  or  substitute,  for  the  real 
thing.  The  coffee  was  really  roasted  corn,  and  gave  full 
proof  of  that  fact  by  its  insipidity.  But  Frau  Franck 
served  me  real  sugar  with  it.  The  bread — what  shall  one 
say  of  German  war-bread  that  will  make  the  picture  dark 
and  heavy  and  indigestible  enough?  It  was  cut  from  just 
such  a  loaf  as  I  had  seen  gaunt  soldiers  of  the  Kaiser  hugging 
under  one  arm  as  they  came  blinking  up  out  of  their  dug- 
outs at  the  point  of  a  doughboy  bayonet,  and  to  say  that 
such  a  loaf  seemed  to  be  half  sawdust  and  half  mud,  that  it 
was  heavier  and  blacker  than  any  adobe  brick,  and  that 
its  musty  scent  was  all  but  overpowering,  would  be  far  too 
mild  a  statement  and  the  comparison  an  insult  to  the  mud 
brick.  The  mother  claimed  it  was  made  of  potatoes  and 
bad  meal.  I  am  sure  she  was  over-charitable.  Yet  on 
this  atrocious  substance,  which  I,  by  no  means  unaccustomed 
to  strange  food,  tasted  once  with  a  shudder  of  disgust,  the 
German  masses  had  been  chiefly  subsisting  since  1915. 
No  wonder  they  quit !  The  night  before  the  bread  had  been 
tolerable,  having  been  brought  from  the  country;  but  the 
three  women  had  stayed  up  munching  that  until  the  last 
morsel  had  disappeared. 

The  snow  had  left  the  trees  of  Trier  beautiful  in  their 
winding-sheets,  but  the  streets  had  already  been  swept. 
It  seemed  queer,  yet,  after  sixteen  months  of  similar  experi- 
ence in  France,  a  matter  of  course  to  be  able  to  ask  one's 
3  19 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

way  of  an  American  policeman  on  every  corner  of  this 
ancient  German  town.  In  the  past  eight  years  I  had  been 
less  than  two  in  my  native  land,  yet  I  had  a  feeling  of 
knowing  the  American  better  than  ever  before;  for  to  take 
him  out  of  his  environment  is  to  see  him  in  close-up  per- 
spective, as  it  were.  Even  here  he  seemed  to  feel  perfectly 
at  home.  Now  and  then  a  group  of  school-girls  playfully 
bombarded  an  M.  P.  with  snowballs,  and  if  he  could  not 
shout  back  some  jest  in  genuine  German,  he  at  least  said 
something  that  "got  across."  The  populace  gave  us  our 
fair  half  of  the  sidewalk,  some  making  a  little  involuntary 
motion  as  if  expecting  an  officer  to  shove  them  off  it  entirely, 
in  the  orthodox  Prussian  manner.  Street-cars  were  free  to 
wearers  of  the  "Sam  Browne";  enlisted  men  paid  the 
infinitesimal  fare  amid  much  good-natured  "joshing"  of 
the  solemn  conductor,  with  his  colonel's  uniform  and  his 
sackful  of  pewter  coins. 

On  railway  trains  tickets  were  a  thing  of  the  past  to 
wearers  of  khaki.  To  the  border  of  Lorraine  we  paid  the 
French  military  fare;  once  in  Germany  proper,  one  had  only 
to  satisfy  the  M.  P.  at  the  gate  to  journey  anywhere  within 
the  occupied  area.  At  the  imposing  building  out  of  which 
the  Germans  had  been  chased  to  give  place  to  our  "Advanced 
G.  H.  Q.,"  I  found  orders  to  proceed  at  once  to  Coblenz, 
but  there  was  time  to  transgress  military  rules  to  the  extent 
of  bringing  Grossmutter  a  loaf  of  white  bread  and  a  can  of 
condensed  milk  from  our  commissary,  to  repair  my  damage 
to  the  family  larder,  before  hurrying  to  the  station.  Yank 
guardsmen  now  sustained  the  contentions  of  the  Verboten 
signs,  instead  of  letting  them  waste  away  in  impotence, 
as  at  Metz.  A  boy  marched  up  and  down  the  platform, 
pushing  a  convenient  little  news-stand  on  wheels,  and  offer- 
ing for  sale  all  the  important  Paris  papers,  as  well  as  Ger- 
man ones.  The  car  I  entered  was  reserved  for  Allied 
officers,  yet  several  Boche  civilians  rode  in  it  unmolested. 

20 


ON  TO  THE  RHINE 

I  could  not  but  wonder  what  would  have  happened  had 
conditions  been  reversed.  They  were  cheerful  enough  in 
spite  of  what  ought  to  have  been  a  humiliating  state  of 
affairs,  possibly  because  of  an  impression  I  heard  one 
hoarsely  whisper  to  another,  "Oh,  they'll  go  home  in  an- 
other six  months;  an  American  officer  told  me  so."  Evi- 
dently some  one  had  been  "fraternizing, "  as  well  as  receiv- 
ing information  which  the  heads  of  the  Peace  Conference 
had  not  yet  gained. 

The  Schnellzug  was  a  real  express;  the  ride  like  that  from 
Albany  to  New  York.  Now  and  then  we  crossed  the 
winding  Moselle,  the  steep,  plump  hills  of  which  were 
planted  to  their  precipitous  crests  with  orderly  vineyards, 
each  vine  carefully  tied  to  its  stalk.  For  mile  after  mile 
the  hills  were  terraced,  eight-foot  walls  of  cut  stone  holding 
up  four-foot  patches  of  earth,  paths  for  the  workers  snaking 
upward  between  them.  The  system  was  almost  exactly 
that  of  the  Peruvians  under  the  Incas,  far  apart  as  they 
were,  in  time  and  place,  from  the  German  peasant.  The 
two  civilizations  could  scarcely  have  compared  notes, 
yet  this  was  not  the  only  similarity  between  them.  But 
then,  hunger  and  over-population  breed  stern  necessity 
the  world  over,  and  with  like  necessity  as  with  similar 
experience,  it  is  no  plagiarism  to  have  worked  out  the 
problem  in  the  same  way.  Between  the  vineyards,  in 
stony  clefts  in  the  hills  useless  for  cultivation,  orderly  towns 
were  tucked  away,  clean  little  towns,  still  flecked  with  the 
snow  of  the  night  before.  Even  the  French  officers  beside 
us  marveled  at  the  cleanliness  of  the  towns  en  Bochie,  and 
at  the  extraordinary  physical  comforts  of  Mainz — I  mean 
Mayence — the  headquarters  of  their  area  of  occupation. 

Heavy  American  motor-trucks  pounded  by  along  the 
already  dusty  road  beside  us,  alternating  now  and  then 
with  a  captured  German  one,  the  Kaiser's  eagles  still  on 
its  flanks,  but  driven  by  a  nonchalant  American  doughboy, 

21 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

its  steel  tires  making  an  uproar  that  could  be  plainly  heard 
aboard  the  racing  express.  Long  freight-trains  rattled 
past  in  the  opposite  direction.  With  open-work  wheels, 
stubby  little  cars  stenciled  "Posen,"  "Essen,"  "Breslau," 
"Brussel,"  and  the  like,  a  half-dozen  employees  perched 
in  the  cubbyholes  on  the  car  ends  at  regular  intervals, 
they  were  German  from  engine  to  lack  of  caboose — except 
that  here  and  there  a  huge  box-car  lettered  "U.  S.  A." 
towered  above  its  puny  Boche  fellows  like  a  mounted  guard 
beside  a  string  of  prisoners.  There  will  still  be  a  market 
for  officers'  uniforms  in  Germany,  though  their  military 
urge  be  completely  emasculated.  Even  the  brakemen  of 
these  freight-trains  looked  like  lieutenants  or  captains; 
a  major  in  appearance  proved  to  be  a  station  guard,  a 
colonel  sold  tickets,  and  the  station-master  might  easily 
have  been  mistaken  for  a  Feldmarschall.  Some  were,  in 
fact.  For  when  the  Yanks  first  occupied  the  region  many 
of  their  commanders  complained  that  German  officers 
were  not  saluting  them,  as  required  by  orders  of  the  Army 
of  Occupation.  Investigation  disclosed  the  harmless  identity 
of  the  imposing  "officers"  in  question.  But  the  rule  was 
amended  to  include  any  one  in  uniform;  we  could  not  be 
wasting  our  time  to  find  out  whether  the  wearer  of  a  gen- 
eral's shoulder-straps  was  the  recent  commander  of  the 
4th  Army  Corps  or  the  town-crier.  So  that  now  Allied 
officers  were  saluted  by  the  police,  the  firemen,  the  mailmen 
— including  the  half -grown  ones  who  carry  special-delivery 
letters — and  even  by  the  "white  wings." 

Those  haughty  Eisenbahnbeamten  took  their  orders  now 
from  plain  American  "bucks,"  took  them  unquestioningly, 
with  signs  of  friendliness,  with  a  docile,  uncomplaining — 
shall  I  say  fatalism?  The  far-famed  German  discipline 
had  not  broken  down  even  under  occupation;  it  carried 
on  as  persistently,  as  doggedly  as  ever.  A  conductor  pass- 
ing through  our  car  recalled  a  "hobo"  experience  out  in 

22 


ON  TO  THE  RHINE 

our  West  back  in  the  early  days  of  the  century.  Armed 
trainmen  had  driven  the  summer-time  harvest  of  free  riders 
off  their  trains  for  more  than  a  week,  until  so  great  a  multi- 
tude of  "boes  "  had  collected  in  a  water-tank  town  of  Dakota 
that  we  took  a  freight  one  day  completely  by  storm,  from 
cow-catcher  to  caboose.  And  the  bloodthirsty,  fire-eating 
brakeman  who  picked  his  way  along  that  train,  gently 
requesting  the  uninvited  railroad  guests  to  "Give  us  a 
place  for  a  foot  there,  pal,  won't  you,  please?"  had  the 
selfsame  expression  on  his  face  as  did  this  apologetic, 
smirking,  square-headed  Boche  who  sidled  so  gently  past  us. 
My  fellow-officers  found  them  cringing,  detestably  servile. 
"Put  a  gun  in  their  hands,"  said  one,  "and  you'd  see  how 
quick  their  character  would  change.  It's  a  whole  damned 
nation  crying  'Kamerad!' — playing  'possum  until  the  danger 
is  over." 

Probably  it  was.  But  there  were  times  when  one  could 
not  help  wondering  if,  after  all,  there  was  not  sincerity  in  the 
assertion  of  my  guide  of  the  night  before : 

"We  are  done;  we  have  had  enough  at  last." 


II 

GERMANY  UNDER  THE  AMERICAN  HEEL 

THE  "Residence  City"  of  Coblenz,  headquarters  of  the 
*•  American  Army  of  Occupation,  is  one  of  the  finest 
on  the  Rhine.  Wealth  has  long  gravitated  toward  the 
triangle  of  land  at  its  junction  with  the  Moselle.  The 
owners — or  recent  owners — of  mines  in  Lorraine  make  their 
homes  there.  The  mother  of  the  late  unlamented  Kaiser 
was  fond  of  the  place  and  saw  to  it  that  no  factory  chim- 
neys came  to  sully  its  skies  with  their  smoke,  or  its  streets 
and  her  tender  heart-strings  with  the  wan  and  sooty  serfs 
of  industrial  progress.  The  British  at  Cologne  had  more 
imposing  quarters;  the  French  at  Mayence,  and  particu- 
larly at  Wiesbaden,  enjoyed  more  artistic  advantages.  A 
few  of  our  virile  warriors,  still  too  young  to  distinguish  real 
enjoyment  from  the  flesh-pots  incident  to  metropolitan 
bustle,  were  sometimes  heard  to  grumble,  "Huh!  they  gave 
us  third  choice,  all  right!"  But  the  consensus  of  opinion 
among  the  Americans  was  contentment.  The  sudden 
change  from  the  mud  burrows  of  the  Argonne,  or  from  the 
war-worn  villages  of  the  Vosges,  made  it  natural  that  some 
should  draw  invidious  comparisons  between  our  long- 
suffering  ally  and  the  apparently  unscathed  enemy.  Those 
who  saw  the  bogy  of  "propaganda"  in  every  corner  accused 
the  Germans  of  preferring  that  the  occupied  territory  be 
the  Rhineland,  rather  than  the  interior  of  Germany,  "be- 
cause this  garden  spot  would  make  a  better  impression 

24 


GERMANY  UNDER  THE  AMERICAN  HEEL 

on  their  enemies,  particularly  the  Americans,  so  susceptible 
to  creature  comforts."  By  inference  the  Boche  might 
have  offered  us  East  Prussia  or  Schleswig  instead!  It  was 
hard  to  believe,  however,  that  those  splendid,  if  sometimes 
top-heavy,  residences  stretching  for  miles  along  the  Rhine 
were  built,  twenty  to  thirty  years  ago  in  many  cases,  with 
any  conscious  purpose  of  impressing  the  prospective  enemies 
of  the  Fatherland. 

It  was  these  creature  comforts  of  his  new  billeting  area 
that  made  the  American  soldier  feel  so  strangely  at  home 
on  the  Rhine.  Here  his  office,  in  contrast  to  the  rude 
stone  casernes  with  their  tiny  tin  stoves  that  gave  off 
smoke  rather  than  heat,  was  cozy,  warm,  often  well  carpeted. 
His  billets  scarcely  resembled  the  frigid,  medieval  ones 
of  France.  Now  that  no  colonel  can  rank  me  out  of  it, 
I  am  free  to  admit  that  in  all  my  travels  I  have  never  been 
better  housed  and  servanted  than  in  Coblenz,  nor  had  a 
more  solicitous  host  than  the  staid  old  judge  who  was  forced 
to  take  me  in  for  a  mere  pittance — paid  in  the  end  by  his 
own  people.  The  Regierungsgebaude — it  means  nothing 
more  terrifying  than  "government  building" — which  the 
rulers  of  the  province  yielded  with  outward  good  grace  to 
our  army  staff,  need  not  have  blushed  to  find  itself  in 
Washington  society.  To  be  sure,  we  were  able  to  dispossess 
the  Germans  of  their  best,  whereas  the  French  could  only 
allot  us  what  their  own  requirements  left;  yet  there  is 
still  a  margin  in  favor  of  the  Rhineland  for  material  comfort. 

I  wonder  if  the  American  at  home  understands  just  what 
military  occupation  means.  Some  of  our  Southerners  of 
the  older  generation  may,  but  I  doubt  whether  the  average 
man  can  visualize  it.  Occupation  means  a  horde  of  armed 
strangers  permeating  to  every  nook  and  corner  of  your 
town,  of  your  house,  of  your  private  life.  It  means  seeing 
what  you  have  hidden  in  that  closet  behind  the  chimney; 
it  means  yielding  your  spare  bed,  even  if  not  doubling  up 

25 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

with  some  other  member  of  the  family  in  order  to  make 
another  bed  available.  It  means  having  your  daughters 
come  into  constant  close  contact  with  self-assertive  young 
men,  often  handsome  and  fascinating;  it  means  subjecting 
yourself,  or  at  least  your  plans,  to  the  rules,  sometimes 
even  to  the  whims,  of  the  occupiers. 

The  Americans  came  to  Coblenz  without  any  of  those 
bombastic  formalities  with  which  the  imagination  imbues 
an  occupation.  One  day  the  streets  were  full  of  soldiers, 
a  bit  slow  in  their  movements  and  thinking  processes, 
dressed  in  bedraggled  dull  gray,  and  the  next  with  more 
soldiers,  of  quick  perception  and  buoyant  step,  dressed  in 
khaki.  The  new-comers  were  just  plain  fighters,  still 
dressed  in  what  the  shambles  of  the  Argonne  had  left  them 
of  clothing.  They  settled  down  to  a  shave  and  a  bath 
and  such  comforts  as  were  to  be  had,  with  the  unassuming 
adaptability  that  marks  the  American.  The  Germans, 
seeing  no  signs  of  those  unpleasant  things  which  had  always 
attended  their  occupation  of  a  conquered  land,  probably 
smiled  to  themselves  and  whispered  that  these  Americaner 
were  strangely  ignorant  of  military  privileges.  They  did 
not  realize  that  their  own  conception  of  a  triumphant  army, 
the  rough  treatment,  the  tear-it-apart-and-take-what-you- 
want-for-yourself  style  of  von  Kluck's  pets,  was  not  the 
American  manner.  The  doughboy  might  hate  a  German 
man  behind  a  machine-gun  as  effectively  as  any  one,  but 
his  hatred  did  not  extend  to  the  man's  women  and  children. 
With  the  latter  particularly  he  quickly  showed  that  cama- 
raderie for  which  the  French  had  found  him  remarkable, 
and  the  plump  little  square-headed  boys  and  the  over- 
blond  little  girls  flocked  about  him  so  densely  that  an  order 
had  to  be  issued  requiring  parents  to  keep  their  children 
away  from  American  barracks. 

But  the  Germans  soon  learned  that  the  occupiers  knew 
what  they  were  about,  or  at  least  learned  with  vertiginous 

26 


GERMANY  UNDER  THE  AMERICAN  HEEL 

rapidity.  A  burgomaster  who  admitted  that  he  might  be 
able  to  accommodate  four  hundred  men  in  his  town,  if 
given  time,  was  informed  that  there  would  be  six  thousand 
troops  there  in  an  hour,  and  that  they  must  be  lodged  be- 
fore nightfall.  Every  factory,  every  industry  of  a  size  worth 
considering,  that  produced  anything  of  use  to  the  Army  of 
Occupation,  was  taken  over.  We  paid  well  for  everything 
of  the  sort — or  rather,  the  Germans  did  in  the  end,  under 
the  ninth  article  of  the  armistice — but  we  took  it.  Scarcely 
a  family  escaped  the  piercing  eye  of  the  billeting  officer; 
clubs,  hotels,  recreation-halls,  the  very  schools  and  churches, 
were  wholly  or  in  part  filled  with  the  boyish  conquerors 
from  overseas.  We  commandeered  the  poor  man 's  drinking- 
places  and  transferred  them  into  enlisted  men's  barracks. 
We  shooed  the  rich  man  out  of  his  sumptuous  club  and 
turned  it  over  to  our  officers.  We  allotted  the  pompous 
Festhalle  and  many  other  important  buildings  to  the  Y.  M. 
C.  A.,  and  "jazz"  and  ragtime  and  burnt-cork  jokes  took 
the  place  of  Lieder  and  Mdnnerchor.  While  we  occupied 
their  best  buildings,  the  German  staff  which  necessity  had 
left  in  Coblenz  huddled  into  an  insignificant  little  house 
on  a  side-street.  Promenading  citizens  encountered  pairs 
of  Yanks  patrolling  with  fixed  bayonets  their  favorite 
Spaziergange.  Day  after  day  throngs  of  Boches  lined  up 
before  the  back  door  to  our  headquarters,  waiting  hours 
to  explain  to  American  lieutenants  why  they  wished  to 
travel  outside  our  area.  Though  the  lieutenants  did  not 
breakfast  until  eight,  that  line  formed  long  before  daylight, 
and  those  who  did  not  get  in  before  noon  stood  on,  out- 
wardly uncomplaining,  sometimes  munching  a  war-bread 
sandwich,  until  the  office  opened  again  at  two,  taking  their 
orders  from  a  buck  private,  probably  from  Milwaukee, 
with  a  red  band  on  his  arm.  A  flicker  of  the  M.  P.'s  eyelid, 
a  flip  of  his  hand,  was  usually  the  only  command  needed; 
so  ready  has  his  lifetime  of  discipline  made  the  average 

27 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

German  to  ooey  any  one  who  has  an  authoritative  manner. 
Every  railway-station  gate,  even  the  crude  little  ferries 
across  the  Rhine  and  the  Moselle,  were  subject  to  the  orders 
of  pass-gathering  American  soldiers. 

The  Germans  could  not  travel,  write  letters,  telephone, 
telegraph,  publish  newspapers,  without  American  permis- 
sion or  acquiescence.  Meetings  were  no  longer  family 
affairs;  a  German-speaking  American  sergeant  in  plain 
clothes  sat  in  on  all  of  them.  We  marched  whole  societies 
off  to  jail  because  they  were  so  careless  as  to  gather  about 
cafe  tables  without  the  written  permission  required  for  such 
activities.  When  they  were  arrested  for  violations  of  these 
and  sundry  other  orders  their  fate  was  settled,  not  after 
long  meditation  by  sage  old  gentlemen,  but  in  the  twinkling 
of  an  eye  by  a  cocksure  lieutenant  who  had  reached  the 
maturity  of  twenty-one  or  two,  and  who,  after  the  custom  of 
the  A.  E.  F.,  "made  it  snappy,"  got  it  over  with  at  once, 
and  lost  no  sleep  in  wondering  if  his  judgment  had  been 
wrong.  In  the  matter  of  cafes,  we  touched  the  German 
in  his  tenderest  spot  by  forbidding  the  sale  or  consumption 
of  all  joy-producing  beverages  except  beer  and  light  wines — 
and  the  American  conception  of  what  constitutes  a  strong 
drink  does  not  jibe  with  the  German's — and  permitted  even 
those  to  be  served  only  from  eleven  to  two  and  from  five  to 
seven — though  later  we  took  pity  on  the  poor  Boche  and 
extended  the  latter  period  three  hours  deeper  into  the 
evening. 

Occasional  incidents  transcended  a  bit  the  spirit  of  our 
really  lenient  occupation.  We  ordered  the  Stars  and 
Stripes  to  be  flown  from  every  building  we  occupied;  and 
there  were  colonels  who  made  special  trips  to  Paris  to  get 
a  flag  that  could  be  seen — could  not  help  being  seen,  in  fact 
— for  fifty  kilometers  round  about.  The  Germans  trembled 
with  fear  to  see  one  of  their  most  cherished  bad  customs 
go  by  the  board  when  a  divisional  order  commanded  them 

28 


GERMANY  UNDER  THE  AMERICAN  HEEL 

to  leave  their  windows  open  at  night,  which  these  strange 
new-comers  considered  a  means  of  avoiding,  rather  than 
abetting,  the  "flu"  and  kindred  ailments.  Over  in  May  en 
a  band  of  citizens,  in  some  wild  lark  or  a  surge  of  "democ- 
racy," dragged  a  stone  statue  of  the  Kaiser  from  its  pedestal 
and  rolled  it  out  to  the  edge  of  town.  There  an  American 
sergeant  in  charge  of  a  stone-quarry  ordered  it  broken 
up  for  road  material.  The  Germans  put  in  a  claim  of 
several  thousand  marks  to  replace  this  "work  of  art." 
The  American  officer  who  "surveyed"  the  case  genially 
awarded  them  three  mk.  fifty — the  value  of  the  stone  at 
current  prices.  In  another  village  the  town-crier  sum- 
moned forth  every  inhabitant  over  the  age  of  ten,  from 
the  burgomaster  down,  at  nine  each  morning,  to  sweep 
the  streets,  and  M.  P.'s  saw  to  it  that  no  one  returned  in- 
doors until  the  American  C.  O.  had  inspected  the  work  and 
pronounced  it  satisfactory.  But  that  particular  officer 
cannot  necessarily  be  credited  with  originality  for  the  idea; 
he  had  been  a  prisoner  in  Germany.  We  even  took  liber- 
ties with  the  German's  time.  On  March  i2th  all  clocks 
of  official  standing  were  moved  ahead  to  correspond  to  the 
"summer  hour"  of  France  and  the  A.  E.  F.,  and  that  auto- 
matically forced  private  timepieces  to  be  advanced  also. 
My  host  declined  for  a  day  or  two  to  conform,  but  he  had 
only  to  miss  one  train  to  be  cured  of  his  obstinacy.  Coblenz 
was  awakened  by  the  insistent  notes  of  the  American 
reveille;  it  was  reminded  of  bedtime  by  that  most  impres- 
sive of  cradle-songs,  the  American  taps,  the  solemn,  repose- 
ful notes  of  which  floated  out  across  the  Rhine  like  an 
invitation  to  wilful  humanity  to  lay  away  its  disputes  as 
it  had  its  labors  of  the  day. 

In  the  main,  for  all  the  occupation,  civilian  life  proceeded 
normally.  Trains  ran  on  time;  cinemas  and  music-halls 
perpetrated  their  customary  piffle  on  crowded  and  uproari- 
ous houses;  bare-kneed  football  games  occupied  the  leisure 

29 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

hours  of  German  youths;  newspapers  appeared  as  usual, 
subject  only  to  the  warning  to  steer  clear  of  a  few  spec- 
ified subjects;  cafes  were  filled  at  the  popular  hours  in 
spite  of  the  restrictions  on  consumption  and  the  tendency 
of  their  orchestras  to  degenerate  into  rag-time.  Would 
military  occupation  be  anything  like  this  in,  say,  Delaware? 
We  often  caught  ourselves  asking  the  question,  and  striving 
to  visualize  our  own  land  under  a  reversal  of  conditions. 
But  the  imagination  never  carried  us  very  far  in  that 
direction;  at  least  those  of  us  who  had  left  it  in  the  early 
days  of  the  war  were  unable  to  picture  our  native  heath 
under  any  such  regime. 

Though  we  appropriated  their  best  to  our  own  purposes, 
the  Germans  will  find  it  hard  to  allege  any  such  wanton 
treatment  of  their  property,  their  homes,  their  castles,  and 
their  government  buildings,  as  their  own  hordes  so  often 
committed  in  France  and  Belgium.  Our  officers  and  men, 
with  rare  exceptions,  gave  the  habitations  that  had  tem- 
porarily become  theirs  by  right  of  conquest  a  care  which 
they  would  scarcely  have  bestowed  upon  their  own.  The 
ballroom  floor  of  Coblenz's  most  princely  club  was  solici- 
tously covered  with  canvas  to  protect  it  from  officers'  hob- 
nails. Castle  Stolzenfels,  a  favorite  place  of  doughboy 
pilgrimage  a  bit  farther  up  the  Rhine,  was  supplied  with 
felt  slippers  for  heavily  shod  visitors.  The  Baedekers  of 
the  future  will  no  doubt  call  the  tourist's  attention  to  the 
fact  that  such  a  Schloss,  that  this  governor's  palace  and 
that  colonel's  residence,  were  once  occupied  by  American 
soldiers,  but  there  will  be  small  chance  to  insinuate,  as 
they  have  against  the  French  of  1689  into  the  description 
of  half  the  monuments  on  the  Rhine,  the  charge  "destroyed 
by  the  Americans  in  1919." 

How  quickly  war  shakes  down!  Until  we  grew  so  accus- 
tomed to  it  that  the  impression  faded  away,  it  was  a  con- 
stant surprise  to  note  how  all  the  business  of  life  went  on 

30 


GERMANY  UNDER  THE  AMERICAN  HEEL 

unconcerned  under  the  occupation.  Ordnung  still  reigned. 
The  postman  still  delivered  his  letters  punctually  and 
placidly.  Transportation  of  all  kinds  retained  almost  its 
peace-time  efficiency.  Paper  ends  and  cigarette  butts 
might  litter  a  corner  here  and  there,  but  that  was  merely 
evidence  that  some  careless  American  soldier  was  not 
carrying  them  to  a  municipal  waste-basket  in  the  disciplined 
German  fashion.  For  if  the  Boches  themselves  had  thrown 
off  restraint  "over  in  Germany" — a  thing  hard  to  believe 
and  still  harder  to  visualize — there  was  little  evidence  of  a 
similar  tendency  along  the  Rhine. 

Dovetailed,  as  it  were,  into  the  life  of  our  late  adversaries 
on  the  field  of  battle,  there  was  a  wide  difference  of  opinion 
in  the  A.  E.  F.  as  to  the  German  character.  The  French 
had  no  such  doubts.  They  admitted  no  argument  as  to  the 
criminality  of  the  Boche;  yet  they  confessed  themselves 
unable  to  understand  his  psychology.  "Us  sont  sincdre- 
ment  faux"  is  perhaps  the  most  succinct  summing  up  of  the 
French  verdict.  "It  took  the  world  a  long  time  to  realize 
that  the  German  had  a  national  point  of  view,  a  way  of 
thinking  quite  at  variance  with  the  rest  of  the  world" — 
our  known  western  world,  at  least;  I  fancy  we  should 
find  the  Japanese  not  dissimilar  if  we  could  read  deep  down 
into  his  heart.  But  the  puzzling  thing  about  the  German's 
"mentality"  is  that  up  to  a  certain  point  he  is  quite  like 
the  rest  of  us.  As  the  alienist's  patient  seems  perfectly 
normal  until  one  chances  upon  his  weak  spot,  so  the  German 
looks  and  acts  for  the  most  part  like  any  normal  human 
being.  It  is  only  when  one  stumbles  upon  the  subject  of 
national  ethics  that  he  is  found  widely  separated  from  the 
bulk  of  mankind.  Once  one  discovers  this  sharp  corner 
in  his  thinking,  and  is  able  to  turn  it  with  him,  it  is  com- 
paratively easy  to  comprehend  the  German's  peculiar 
notions  of  recent  events. 

"The  Hun,"  asserted  a  European  editorial- writer,  "feels 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

that  his  army  has  not  been  beaten;  that,  on  the  contrary, 
he  had  all  the  military  prestige  of  the  war.  Then  he  knew 
that  there  was  increasing  scarcity  of  food  at  home  and, 
feeling  that  the  Allies  were  in  mortal  dread  of  new  drives 
by  the  German  army  and  would  be  only  too  glad  to 
compromise,  he  proposed  an  armistice.  Germany  expected 
the  world  to  supply  her  gladly  with  all  her  needs,  as  a  mark 
of  good  faith,  and  to  encourage  the  timorous  Allies  she 
offered  to  let  them  advance  to  the  Rhine.  Now  the  Ger- 
mans affect  to  wonder  why  Germany  is  not  completely 
supplied  by  the  perfidious  Allies,  and  why  the  garrisons, 
having  been  allowed  to  see  the  beautiful  Rhine  scenery, 
do  not  withdraw.  Not  only  the  ignorant  classes,  but  those 
supposedly  educated,  take  that  attitude.  They  consider, 
apparently,  that  the  armistice  was  an  agreement  for  mutual 
benefit,  and  the  idea  that  the  war  was  anything  but  a  draw, 
with  the  prestige  all  on  the  German  side,  has  not  yet  pene- 
trated to  the  German  mind." 

With  the  above — it  was  written  in  January — and  the 
outward  show  of  friendliness  for  the  American  Army  of 
Occupation  as  a  text,  I  examined  scores  of  Germans  of  all 
classes,  whom  our  sergeants  picked  out  of  the  throngs 
that  passed  through  our  hands  and  pushed  one  by  one 
into  my  little  office  overlooking  the  Rhine.  Their  attitude, 
their  answers  were  always  the  same,  parrot-like  in  their 
sameness.  Before  a  week  had  passed  I  could  have  set 
down  the  replies,  almost  in  their  exact  words,  the  instant 
the  man  to  be  interviewed  appeared  in  the  doorway,  to 
click  his  heels  resoundingly  while  holding  his  arms  stiffly 
at  his  sides.  As  becomes  a  long-disciplined  people,  the 
German  is  certainly  no  individualist.  Once  one  has  a  key 
to  it,  one  can  be  just  as  sure  what  he  is  going  to  do,  and 
how  he  is  going  to  do  it,  as  one  can  that  duplicates  of  the 
shoes  one  has  always  worn  are  going  to  fit.  Yet  what 
did  they  really  think,  away  down  under  their  generations 

32 


GERMANY  UNDER  THE  AMERICAN  HEEL 

of  discipline?  This  procession  of  men  with  their  close- 
cropped  heads  and  their  china-blue  eyes  that  looked  at 
me  as  innocently  as  a  Nurnberg  doll,  who  talked  so  glibly 
with  apparent  friendliness  and  perfect  frankness,  surely 
has  some  thoughts  hidden  away  in  the  depths  of  their  souls. 
Yet  one  seldom,  if  ever,  caught  a  glimpse  of  them.  Pos- 
sibly there  were  none  there;  the  iron  discipline  of  a  half- 
century  may  have  killed  the  hidden  roots  as  well  as  destroyed 
the  plant  itself.  In  contrast  with  the  sturdily  independent 
American,  sharply  individualistic  still  in  spite  of  his  year 
or  two  of  army  training,  these  heel-clicking  automatons 
were  exasperating  in  their  garrulous  taciturnity. 

"What  most  characterizes  the  German,"  said  Mosers, 
more  than  a  century  ago,  "is  obedience,  respect  for  force." 
What  probably  struck  the  plain  American  doughboy  even 
more  than  mere  obedience  was  their  passive  docility,  their 
immediate  compliance  with  all  our  requirements.  They 
could  have  been  so  mean,  so  disobedient  in  petty  little  ways 
without  openly  disobeying.  Instead,  they  seemed  to  go 
out  of  their  road  to  make  our  task  of  occupation  easy. 
Their  racial  discipline  not  merely  did  not  break  down; 
it  permeated  every  nook  and  corner.  The  very  children 
never  gave  a  gesture,  a  whisper  of  wilfulness;  the  family 
warning  found  them  as  docile  as  a  lifetime  of  training  had 
left  the  adults.  It  was  easy  to  imagine  French  or  American 
boys  under  the  same  conditions — all  the  bright  little  Hal- 
lowe'en tricks  they  would  have  concocted  to  make  unpleasant 
the  life  of  the  abhorred  enemy  rulers.  Was  it  not  perhaps 
this,  from  the  German  point  of  view,  criminally  undisci- 
plined character  of  other  races,  as  much  as  their  own  native 
brutality,  that  caused  the  armies  of  the  Kaiser  to  inflict 
so  many  unfair  punishments?  Any  traveler  who  has  noted 
the  abhorrence  with  which  the  German  looks  upon  the  sim- 
plest infraction  of  the  most  insignificant  order — the  mere 
entering  by  a  "Verbotener  Eingang" — that  the  American 

33 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

would  disobey  and  pay  his  fine  and  go  his  way  with  a  smile 
of  amusement  on  his  face,  will  not  find  it  difficult  to  visualize 
the  red  rage  with  which  the  German  soldier  beheld  any  lack 
of  seriousness  toward  the  stern  and  sacred  commands  of 
their  armies  of  occupation. 

None  of  us  guessed  aright  as  to  Germany's  action  in  case 
of  defeat.  Talk  of  starvation  though  we  will,  she  did  not 
fight  to  a  standstill,  as  our  South  did,  for  example.  She 
gave  proof  of  a  strong  faith  in  the  old  adage  beginning 
"He  who  fights  and  runs  away  ..."  She  quit  when  the 
tide  turned,  not  at  the  last  crag  of  refuge,  and  one  could  not 
but  feel  less  respect  for  her  people  accordingly.  But  what- 
ever remnant  of  estimation  may  have  been  left  after  their 
sudden  abandonment  of  the  field  might  have  been  enhanced 
by  an  occasional  lapse  from  their  docility,  by  a  proof  now 
and  then  that  they  were  human,  after  all.  Instead,  we 
got  something  that  verged  very  closely  upon  cringing,  as  a 
personal  enemy  one  had  just  trounced  might  bow  his  thanks 
and  offer  to  light  his  victor's  cigar.  It  is  impossible  to 
believe  that  any  one  could  be  rendered  so  docile  by  mere 
orders  from  above.  It  is  impossible  to  believe  they  had  no 
hatred  in  their  hearts  for  the  nation  that  finally  turned 
the  balance  of  war  against  them.  It  must  be  habit,  habit 
formed  by  those  with  superimposed  rulers,  as  contrasted 
with  those  who  have  their  word,  or  at  least  fancy  they  have, 
in  their  own  government. 

That  they  should  take  the  fortunes  of  war  philosophically 
was  comprehensible.  The  most  chauvinistic  of  them  must 
now  and  then  have  had  an  inkling  that  those  who  live 
by  the  sword  might  some  day  catch  the  flash  of  it  over 
their  own  heads.  Or  it  may  be  that  they  had  grown  so 
used  to  military  rule  that  ours  did  not  bother  them.  Except 
to  their  politicians,  their  ex-officers,  and  the  like,  who  must 
have  realized  most  keenly  that  some  one  else  was  "holding 
the  bag,"  what  real  difference  is  there  between  being  ruled 

34 


GERMANY  UNDER  THE  AMERICAN  HEEL 

by  a  just  and  not  ungentle  enemy  from  across  the  sea  and 
by  an  iron-stern  hierarchy  in  distant  Berlin?  Besides, 
has  not  Germany  long  contended  that  the  stronger  peoples 
have  absolute  rights  over  the  weaker?  Why,  then,  should 
they  contest  their  own  argument  when  they  suddenly  dis- 
covered, to  their  astonishment,  that  their  claims  to  the 
position  of  superman  were  poorly  based?  The  weak 
have  no  rights — it  is  the  German  himself  who  has  said  so. 
Was  it  this  belief  that  gave  their  attitude  toward  us,  out- 
wardly at  least,  a  suggestion  of  almost  Arabic  fatalism? 
It  is  no  such  anomaly  as  it  may  seem  that  the  Germaa? 
and  the  Turk  should  have  joined  forces;  they  have  con- 
siderable in  common — "Allah,  II  Allah,  Thy  will  be  done"! 
The  last  thing  the  Germans  showed  toward  our  Army  of 
Occupation  was  enmity.  Nothing  pointed  to  a  smoldering 
resentment  behind  their  masks,  as,  for  example,  with  the 
Mexicans.  There  was  slight  difference  between  an  errand 
of  liaison  to  a  bureau  of  the  German  staff-officers  left  in 
Coblenz  and  similar  commissions  to  the  French  or  the 
Italians  before  the  armistice — an  atmosphere  only  a  trifle 
more  strained,  which  was  natural  in  view  of  the  fact  that 
I  came  to  order  rather  than  to  cajole.  The  observation 
balloon  that  rode  the  sky  above  our  area,  its  immense 
Stars  and  Stripes  visible  even  in  unoccupied  territory, 
was  frequently  pointed  out  with  interest,  never  with  any 
evidence  of  animosity.  There  was  a  constant  stream  of 
people,  principally  young  men,  through  our  offices,  inquir- 
ing how  they  could  most  easily  emigrate  to  America.  Inci- 
dentally we  were  besieged  by  scores  of  "Americans"  who 
spoke  not  a  word  of  English,  who  had  been  "caught  here 
by  the  war"  and  had  in  many  cases  killed  time  by  serving 
in  the  German  army,  but  who  now  demanded  all  the  priv- 
ileges which  their  "citizenship"  was  supposed  to  confer 
upon  them.  A  German  major  wrote  a  long  letter  of  applica- 
tion for  admission  into  the  American  army,  with  the  bland 
4  35 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

complacency  with  which  a  pedagogue  whose  school  had 
been  abolished  might  apply  for  a  position  in  another.  There 
was  not  a  sign  of  resentment  even  against  "  German- Ameri- 
cans"— as  the  Boche  was  accustomed  to  call  them  until  he 
discovered  the  virtual  non-existence  of  any  such  anomaly — 
for  having  entered  the  war  against  the  old  Fatherland. 
The  government  of  their  adopted  country  had  ordered  them 
to  do  so,  and  no  one  understands  better  than  the  German 
that  government  orders  are  issued  to  be  obeyed. 

Some  contended  that  the  women  in  particular  had  a 
deep  resentment  against  the  American  soldiers,  that  they 
were  still  loyal  to  the  Kaiser  and  to  the  old  order  of  things, 
that  they  saw  in  us  the  murderers  of  their  sons  and  husbands, 
the  jailers  of  their  prisoners.  On  a  few  rare  occasions  I 
felt  a  breath  of  frigidity  in  the  attitude  of  some  grande  dame 
of  the  haughtier  class.  But  whether  it  was  a  definite  policy 
of  conciliation  to  win  the  friendship  of  America,  in  the  hope 
that  it  would  soften  the  blow  of  the  Treaty  of  Peace,  as  a 
naughty  boy  strives  to  make  up  for  his  naughtiness  at 
sight  of  the  whip  being  taken  down  from  its  hook,  or  a 
mere  "mothering  instinct,"  the  vast  majority  of  our  host- 
esses, even  though  war  widows,  went  out  of  their  way  to 
make  our  stay  with  them  pleasant.  Clothes  were  mended, 
buttons  sewed  on  unasked.  Maids  and  housewives  alike 
gave  our  quarters  constant  attention.  The  mass  of  Ameri- 
cans on  the  Rhine  came  with  the  impression  that  they 
would  be  forced  to  go  heavily  armed  day  and  night.  Except 
for  the  established  patrols  and  sentries,  the  man  or  officer 
who  "toted"  a  weapon  anywhere  in  the  occupied  area 
could  scarcely  have  aroused  the  ridicule  of  his  comrades 
more  had  he  appeared  in  sword  and  armor.  There  was, 
to  be  sure,  a  rare  case  of  an  American  soldier  being  done 
to  death  by  hoodlums  in  some  drunken  brawl,  but,  for  the 
matter  of  that,  so  there  was  in  France. 

Now  and  then  one  stumbled  upon  the  sophistry  that  seems 

36 


GERMANY  UNDER  THE  AMERICAN  HEEL 

so  established  a  trait  in  the  German  character.  No  cor- 
poration lawyer  could  have  been  more  clever  in  finding 
loopholes  in  the  proclamations  issued  by  the  Army  of  Occu- 
pation than  those  adherents  of  the  "scrap  of  paper"  fallacy 
who  set  out  to  do  so.  My  host  sent  up  word  from  time  to 
time  for  permission  to  spend  an  evening  with  me  over  a 
bottle  of  well-aged  Rhine  wine  with  which  his  cellar  seemed 
still  to  be  liberally  stocked.  On  one  occasion  the  conversa- 
tion turned  to  several  holes  in  the  ceiling  of  my  sumptuous 
parlor.  They  were  the  result,  the  pompous  old  judge 
explained,  of  an  air  raid  during  the  last  August  of  the  war. 
A  bomb  had  carried  away  the  window-shutters,  portions  of 
the  granite  steps  beneath,  and  had  liberally  pockmarked 
the  stone  facade  of  the  house. 

"It  was  horrible,"  he  growled.  "We  all  had  to  go  down 
into  the  cellar,  and  my  poor  little  grandson  cried  from 
fright.  That  is  no  way  to  make  war,  against  the  innocent 
non-combatants,  and  women  and  children." 

I  did  not  trouble  to  ask  him  if  he  had  expressed  the  same 
sentiments  among  his  fellow  club-members  in,  say,  May, 
1915,  for  his  sophistry  was  too  well  trained  to  be  caught  in  so 
simple  a  trap. 

Whatever  the  docility,  the  conciliatory  attitude  of  our 
forced  hosts,  however,  I  have  yet  to  hear  that  one  of  them 
ever  expressed  repentance  for  the  horrors  their  nation 
loosed  upon  the  world.  The  war  they  seemed  to  take  as 
the  natural,  the  unavoidable  thing,  just  a  part  of  life,  as 
the  gambler  takes  gambling,  with  no  other  regret  than 
that  it  was  their  bad  luck  to  lose.  Like  the  gambler, 
they  may  have  been  sorry  they  made  certain  moves  in  the 
game;  they  may  have  regretted  entering  the  game  at  all, 
as  the  gambler  would  who  knew  in  the  end  that  his  adversary 
had  more  money  on  his  hip  than  he  had  given  him  credit 
for  in  the  beginning.  But  it  was  never  a  regret  for  being 
a  gambler.  Did  not  Nietzsche  say  that  to  regret,  to  repent, 

37 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

is  a  sign  of  weakness  ?  Unless  there  was  something  under  his 
mask  that  never  showed  a  hint  of  its  existence  on  the  surface, 
the  German  is  still  a  firm  disciple  of  Nietzschean  philosophy. 

There  was  much  debate  among  American  officers  as  to 
just  what  surge  of  feeling  passed  through  the  veins  of  a 
German  of  high  rank  forced  to  salute  his  conquerors.  With 
rare  exceptions,  every  Boche  in  uniform  rendered  the 
required  homage  with  meticulous  care.  Now  and  then  one 
carefully  averted  his  eyes  or  turned  to  gaze  into  a  shop- 
window  in  time  to  avoid  the  humiliation.  But  for  the  most 
part  they  seemed  almost  to  go  out  of  their  way  to  salute, 
some  almost  brazenly,  others  with  a  half -friendly  little  bow. 
I  shall  long  remember  the  invariable  click  of  heels  and  the 
smart  hand-to-cap  of  the  resplendent  old  general  with  a 
white  beard  who  passed  me  each  morning  on  the  route  to 
our  respective  offices. 

That  there  was  feeling  under  these  brazen  exteriors, 
however,  was  proved  by  the  fact  that  most  of  the  officers 
in  the  occupied  area  slipped  quietly  into  civilian  clothes, 
for  no  other  apparent  reason  than  to  escape  the  unwelcome 
order.  From  the  day  of  our  entrance  no  German  in  uniform 
was  permitted  in  our  territory  unless  on  official  business, 
sanctioned  by  our  authorities.  But  the  term  "uniform" 
was  liberally  interpreted.  A  discharged  soldier,  unable  to 
invest  in  a  new  wardrobe,  attained  civilian  status  by  ex- 
changing his  ugly,  round,  red-banded  fatigue-bonnet  for  a 
hat  or  cap;  small  boys  were  not  rated  soldiers  simply 
because  they  wore  cut-down  uniforms.  Then  on  March 
ist  came  a  new  order  from  our  headquarters  commanding 
all  members  of  the  German  army  in  occupied  territory 
never  to  appear  in  public  out  of  uniform,  always  to  carry 
papers  showing  their  presence  in  our  area  to  be  officially 
authorized,  and  to  report  to  an  American  official  every 
Monday  morning.  The  streets  of  Coblenz  blossomed 
out  that  day  with  more  varieties  of  German  uniforms  than 

38 


GERMANY  UNDER  THE  AMERICAN  HEEL 

most  members  of  the  A.  E.  F.  had  ever  seen  outside  a 
prisoner-of-war  inclosure. 

It  was  easy  to  understand  why  Germans  in  uniform 
saluted — they  were  commanded  to  do  so.  But  why  did 
every  male,  from  childhood  up,  in  many  districts,  raise 
his  hat  to  us  with  a  subservient  "'n  Tag";  why  the  same 
words,  with  a  hint  of  courtesy,  from  the  women?  Was  it 
fear,  respect,  habit,  design?  It  could  scarcely  have  been 
sarcasm;  the  German  peasantry  barely  knows  the  meaning 
of  that.  Why  should  a  section  foreman,  whose  only  sug- 
gestion of  a  uniform  was  a  battered  old  railway  cap,  go  out 
of  his  way  to  render  us  military  homage?  Personally  I  am 
inclined  to  think  that,  had  conditions  been  reversed,  I  should 
have  climbed  a  tree  or  crawled  into  a  culvert.  But  we  came 
to  wonder  if  they  did  not  consider  the  salute  a  privilege. 

Only  the  well-dressed  in  the  cities  showed  an  attitude 
that  seemed  in  keeping  with  the  situation,  from  our  point 
of  view.  They  frequently  avoided  looking  at  us,  pretended 
not  to  see  us,  treated  us  much  as  the  Chinese  take  their 
"invisible"  property-man  at  the  theater.  At  the  back  door 
of  our  headquarters  the  pompous  high  priests  of  business 
and  politics,  or  those  haughty,  well-set-up  young  men  who, 
one  could  see  at  a  glance,  had  been  army  officers,  averted 
their  eyes  to  hide  the  rage  that  burned  within  them  when 
forced  to  stand  their  turn  behind  some  slattern  woman  or 
begrimed  workman.  In  a  tramway  or  train  now  and  then 
it  was  amusing  to  watch  a  former  captain  or  major,  weather- 
browned  with  service  in  the  field,  still  boldly  displaying 
his  kaiserly  mustache,  still  wearing  his  army  leggings  and 
breeches,  looking  as  out  of  place  in  his  civilian  coat  as  a 
cowboy  with  a  cane,  as  he  half  openly  gritted  his  teeth  at 
the  "undisciplined"  American  privates  who  dared  do  as 
they  pleased  without  so  much  as  asking  his  leave.  But 
it  was  no  less  amusing  to  note  how  superbly  oblivious  to 
his  wrath  were  the  merrymaking  doughboys. 

39 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

The  kaiserly  mustache  of  world-wide  fame,  by  the  way, 
has  largely  disappeared,  at  least  in  the  American  sector. 
In  fact,  the  over-modest  lip  decoration  made  famous  by 
our  most  popular  "movie"  star  seemed  to  be  the  vogue. 
More  camouflage?  More  "Kamerad"?  A  gentle  com- 
pliment to  the  Americans?  Or  was  it  merely  the  natural 
change  of  style,  the  passing  that  in  time  befalls  all  things, 
human  or  kaiserlich? 

Speaking  of  German  officers,  when  the  first  inkling 
leaked  out  of  Paris  that  Germany  might  be  required  by 
the  terms  of  the  Treaty  of  Peace  to  reduce  her  army  to  a 
hundred  thousand  men  there  was  a  suggestion  of  panic 
among  our  German  acquaintances.  It  was  not  that  they 
were  eager  to  serve  their  three  years  as  conscripts,  as  their 
fathers  had  done.  There  was  parrot-like  agreement  that 
no  government  would  ever  again  be  able  to  force  the  man- 
hood of  the  land  to  that  sacrifice.  Nor  was  there  any  great 
fear  that  so  small  an  army  would  be  inadequate  to  the 
requirements  of  "democratized"  Germany.  The  question 
was,  "What  on  earth  can  we  do  with  all  our  officers,  if 
you  allow  us  only  four  thousand  or  so?"  Prohibition,  I 
believe,  raised  the  same  grave  problem  with  regard  to  our 
bartenders.  But  as  we  visualized  our  own  army  reduced 
to  the  same  stern  necessity  the  panic  was  comprehensible. 
What  would  we,  under  similar  circumstances,  do  with 
many  of  our  dear  old  colonels  ?  They  would  serve  admirably 
as  taxi-door  openers  along  Fifth  Avenue — were  it  not  for 
their  pride.  They  would  scarcely  make  good  grocery 
clerks;  they  were  not  spry  enough,  nor  accurate  enough  at 
figures.  However,  the  predicament  is  one  the  Germans 
can  scarcely  expect  the  Allies  to  solve  for  them. 

"War,"  said  Voltaire,  "is  the  business  of  Germany." 
One  realized  more  and  more  the  fact  in  that  assertion  as  new 
details  of  the  thorough  militarization  of  land,  population, 
and  industry  came  to  light  under  our  occupancy.  Fortifica- 

40 


GERMANY  UNDER  THE  AMERICAN  HEEL 

tions,  labyrinths  of  secret  tunnels,  massive  stores  of  every- 
thing that  could  by  any  possibility  be  of  use  in  the  com- 
plicated business  of  war;  every  man  up  through  middle  age, 
who  had  still  two  legs  to  stand  on,  marked  with  his  service 
in  Mars's  workshop ;  there  was  some  hint  of  militarization  at 
every  turn.  Not  the  least  striking  of  them  was  the  aggres- 
sive propaganda  in  favor  of  war  and  of  loyalty  to  the  war 
lords.  Not  merely  were  there  monuments,  inscriptions, 
martial  mottoes,  to  din  the  military  inclination  into  the 
simple  Volk  wherever  the  eye  turned.  In  the  most  miser- 
able little  Gasthaus,  with  its  bare  floors  and  not  half  enough 
cover  on  the  beds  to  make  a  winter  night  comfortable, 
huge  framed  pictures  of  martial  nature  stared  down  upon  the 
shivering  guest.  Here  hung  a  life-size  portrait  of  Hinden- 
burg;  there  was  a  war  scene  of  Blucher  crossing  the  Rhine; 
beyond,  an  "Opfergaben  des  Volkes,"  in  which  a  long  line 
of  simple  laboring  people  had  come  to  present  with  great 
deference  their  most  cherished  possession — a  bent  old 
peasant,  a  silver  heirloom;  a  girl,  her  hair — on  the  altar 
of  their  rulers'  martial  ambition.  It  is  doubtful  whether 
the  Germans  have  any  conception  of  how  widely  this 
harvest  of  tares  has  overspread  their  national  life.  It  may 
come  to  them  years  hence,  when  grim  necessity  has  forced 
them  to  dig  up  the  pernicious  roots. 

But  the  old  order  was  already  beginning  to  show  signs  of 
change.  On  a  government  building  over  at  Trier  the  first 
word  of  the  lettering  "Koniglicher  Hauptzollamt "  had  been 
obliterated.  In  a  little  town  down  the  Rhine  the  dingy 

HOTEL  DEUTSCHER  KAISER 
Diners  i  mk.  50  und  holier 
Logis  von  2  mk.  an 

had  the  word  "Kaiser"  painted  over,  though  it  was  still 
visible  through  the  whitewash,  as  if  ready  to  come  back  at 
a  new  turn  of  events. 

41 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

The  adaptability  of  the  German  as  a  merchant  has  long 
since  been  proved  by  his  commercial  success  all  over  the 
world.  It  quickly  became  evident  to  the  Army  of  Occupa- 
tion that  he  was  not  going  to  let  his  feelings — if  he  had  any 
— interfere  with  business.  As  a  demand  for  German  uni- 
forms, equipment,  insignia  faded  away  behind  the  retreat- 
ing armies  of  the  Kaiser,  commerce  instantly  adapted  itself 
to  the  new  conditions.  Women  who  had  earned  their  liveli- 
hood or  their  pin-money  for  four  years  by  embroidering 
shoulder-straps  and  knitting  sword-knots  for  the  soldiers 
in  field  gray  quickly  turned  their  needles  to  making  the 
ornaments  for  which  the  inquiries  of  the  new-comers  showed 
a  demand.  Shop-windows  blossomed  out  overnight  in  a 
chaos  of  divisional  insignia,  of  service  stripes,  with  khaki 
cloth  and  the  coveted  shoulder-pins  from  brass  bars  to 
silver  stars,  with  anything  that  could  appeal  to  the  Ameri- 
can doughboy  as  a  suitable  souvenir  of  his  stay  on  the 
Rhine — and  this  last  covers  a  multitude  of  sins  indeed. 
Iron  crosses  of  both  classes  were  dangled  before  his  eager 
eyes.  The  sale  of  these  "highest  prizes  of  German  man- 
hood" to  their  enemies  as  mere  pocket-pieces  roused  a 
howl  of  protest  in  the  local  papers,  but  the  trinkets  could 
still  be  had,  if  more  or  less  sub  rosa.  Spiked  helmets — 
he  must  be  an  uninventive  or  an  absurdly  truthful  mem- 
ber of  the  new  Watch  on  the  Rhine  who  cannot  show 
visible  evidence  to  the  amazed  folks  at  home  of  having 
captured  at  least  a  dozen  Boche  officers  and  despoiled 
them  of  their  headgear.  Those  helmets  were  carried  off 
by  truck-loads  from  a  storehouse  just  across  the  Mo- 
selle; they  loaded  down  the  A.  E.  F.  mails  until  it  is 
strange  there  were  ships  left  with  space  for  soldiers  home- 
ward bound.  A  sergeant  marched  into  his  captain's  billet 
in  an  outlying  town  with  a  telescoped  bundle  of  six  hel- 
mets and  laid  them  down  with  a  snappy,  "Nine  marks 
each,  sir." 

42 


GERMANY  UNDER  THE  AMERICAN  HEEL 

"Can  you  get  me  a  half-dozen,  too?"  asked  a  visiting 
lieutenant. 

"Don't  know,  sir,"  replied  the  sergeant.  "He  made 
these  out  of  some  remnants  he  had  left  on  hand,  but  he  is 
not  sure  he  can  get  any  more  material." 

If  we  had  not  awakened  to  our  peril  in  time  and  the 
Germans  had  taken  New  York,  would  our  seamstresses 
have  made  German  flags  and  our  merchants  have  promi- 
nently displayed  them  in  their  windows,  tagged  with  the 
price?  Possibly.  We  of  the  A.  E.  F.  have  learned  some- 
thing of  the  divorce  of  patriotism  from  business  since  the 
days  when  the  money-grabbers  first  descended  upon  us 
in  the  training-camps  at  home.  The  merchants  of  Coblenz, 
at  any  rate,  were  quite  as  ready  to  take  an  order  for  a 
Stars  and  Stripes  six  feet  by  four  as  for  a  red,  white,  and 
black  banner.  What  most  astonished,  perhaps,  the  khaki- 
clad  warriors  who  had  just  escaped  from  France  was  the 
German's  lack  of  profiteering  tendencies.  Prices  were  not 
only  moderate;  they  remained  so  in  spite  of  the  influx  of 
Americans  and  the  constant  drop  in  the  value  of  the  mark. 
The  only  orders  on  the  subject  issued  by  the  American 
authorities  was  the  ruling  that  prices  must  be  the  same  for 
Germans  and  for  the  soldiers  of  occupation;  nothing  hin- 
dered merchants  from  raising  their  rates  to  all,  yet  this 
rarely  happened  even  in  the  case  of  articles  of  almost 
exclusive  American  consumption. 

"Shoe-shine  parlors,"  sometimes  with  the  added  entice- 
ment, "We  Shine  Your  Hobnails,"  sprang  up  in  every 
block  and  were  so  quickly  filled  with  Yanks  intent  on  obey- 
ing the  placard  to  "Look  Like  a  Soldier"  that  the  pro- 
prietors had  perforce  to  encourage  their  own  timid  people 
by  posting  the  notice,  "Germans  Also  Admitted."  Barber 
shops  developed  hair  carpets  from  sheer  inability  to  find 
time  to  sweep  out,  and  at  that  the  natives  were  hard  put 
to  it  to  get  rid  of  their  own  facial  stubble.  When  the 

43 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

abhorred  order  against  photography  by  members  of  the 
A.  E.  F.  was  suddenly  and  unexpectedly  lifted,  the  camera- 
shops  resembled  the  entrance  to  a  ball-park  on  the  day  of 
the  deciding  game  between  the  two  big  leagues.  There 
was  nothing  timid  or  squeamish  about  German  commerce. 
Shops  were  quite  ready  to  display  post-cards  showing  French 
ruins  with  chesty  German  officers  strutting  in  the  fore- 
ground, once  they  found  that  these  appealed  to  the  inde- 
fatigable and  all-embracing  American  souvenir  -  hunter. 
Down  in  Cologne  a  German  printing-shop  worked  overtime 
to  get  out  an  official  history  of  the  American  3d  Division. 
In  the  cafes  men  who  had  been  shooting  at  us  three  months 
before  sat  placidly  sawing  off  our  own  popular  airs  and 
struggling  to  perpetrate  in  all  its  native  horror  that  inex- 
cusable hubbub  known  as  the  "American  jazz."  The  sign 
"American  spoken  here"  met  the  eye  at  frequent  intervals. 
Whether  the  wording  was  from  ignorance,  sarcasm,  an 
attempt  to  be  complimentary,  or  a  sign  of  hatred  of  the 
English  has  not  been  recorded.  There  was  not  much 
call  for  the  statement  even  when  it  was  true,  for  it  was 
astounding  what  a  high  percentage  of  the  Army  of  Occupa- 
tion spoke  enough  German  to  "get  by."  The  French  never 
tired  of  showing  their  surprise  when  a  Yank  addressed 
them  in  their  own  tongue;  the  Germans  took  it  as  a  matter 
of  course,  though  they  often  had  the  ill  manners  to  insist 
on  speaking  "English"  whatever  the  fluency  of  the  customer 
in  their  own  language,  a  barbaric  form  of  impoliteness 
which  the  French  are  usually  too  instinctively  tactful  to 
commit. 

On  the  banks  of  the  Rhine  in  the  heart  of  "Duddlebug" — 
keep  it  dark!  It  is  merely  the  American  telephone  girls' 
name  for  Coblenz,  but  it  would  be  a  grievous  treachery 
if  some  careless  reader  let  the  secret  leak  out  to  Berlin — 
there  stands  one  of  the  forty-eight  palaces  that  belonged 
to  the  ex-Kaiser.  Its  broad  lawn  was  covered  now  with 

44 


GERMANY  UNDER  THE  AMERICAN  HEEL 

hastily  erected  Y.  M.  C.  A.  wooden  recreation-halls  that 
contrast  strangely  with  the  buildings  of  the  surrounding 
city,  constructed  to  stand  for  centuries,  and  which  awaken 
in  the  German  breast  a  speechless  wrath  that  these  irreverent 
beings  from  overseas  should  have  dared  to  perpetrate  such  a 
Use-majesU  on  the  sacred  precincts.  But  the  Schloss  itself 
was  not  occupied  by  the  Americans,  and  there  have  been 
questions  asked  as  to  the  reason — whether  those  in  high 
standing  in  our  army  were  showing  a  sympathy  for  the 
monarch  who  took  Dutch  leave  which  they  did  not  grant  the 
garden  variety  of  his  ex-subjects.  The  allegation  has  no 
basis.  Upon  his  arrival  the  commander  of  the  Army  of 
Occupation  gave  the  palace  a  careful  "once  over"  and 
concluded  that  the  simplest  solution  was  to  leave  its  offices 
to  the  German  authorities  who  were  being  ousted  from 
more  modern  buildings.  As  to  the  residence  portion,  the 
wily  old  caretaker  pointed  out  to  the  general  that  there 
was  neither  gas,  electricity,  nor  up-to-date  heating  facilities. 
In  the  immense  drawing-  and  throne-rooms  there  was,  to 
be  sure,  space  enough  to  billet  a  battalion  of  soldiers,  but 
it  would,  perhaps,  have  been  too  typically  Prussian  an 
action  to  have  risked  a  repetition  of  what  occurred  at  Ver- 
sailles in  1871  by  turning  over  this  mess  of  royal  bric-a-brac 
and  the  glistening  polished  floors  to  the  tender  care  of  a 
hobnailed  band  of  concentrated  virility. 

Plainly  impressive  enough  outwardly,  the  "living "-rooms 
of  the  castle  would  probably  be  dubbed  a  "nightmare" 
by  the  American  of  simple  tastes.  The  striving  of  the  Ger- 
mans to  ape  the  successful  nations  of  antiquity,  the  Greeks, 
and  particularly  the  Romans,  in  art  and  architecture,  as 
well  as  in  empire-building,  is  in  evidence  here,  as  in  so  many 
of  the  ambitious  residences  of  Coblenz.  The  result  is  a 
new  style  of  "erudite  barbarism,"  as  Romain  Rolland  calls 
it,  "laborious  efforts  to  show  genius  which  result  in  the  banal 
and  grotesque."  The  heavy,  ponderous  luxury  and  melange 

45 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

of  style  was  on  the  whole  oppressive.  In  the  entire  series 
of  rooms  there  was  almost  nothing  really  worth  looking  at 
for  itself,  except  a  few  good  paintings  and  an  occasional 
insignificant  little  gem  tucked  away  in  some  corner.  They 
were  mainly  filled  with  costly  and  useless  bric-a-brac,  royal 
presents  of  chiefly  bad  taste,  from  Sultan,  Pope,  and  poten- 
tate, all  stuck  about  with  a  very  stiff  air  and  the  customary 
German  over-ornateness.  The  place  looked  far  less  like  a 
residence  than  like  a  museum  which  the  defenseless  owner 
had  been  forced  to  build  to  house  the  irrelevant  mass  of 
junk  that  had  been  thrust  upon  him.  Costly  ivory  sets  of 
dominoes,  chess,  table  croquet,  what  not,  showed  how  these 
pathetic  beings,  kings  and  emperors,  passed  their  time, 
which  the  misfortune  of  rank  did  not  permit  them  to  spend 
wandering  the  streets  or  grassy  fields  like  mere  human 
beings. 

The  old  caretaker  had  some  silly  little  anecdote  for 
almost  every  article  he  pointed  out.  He  had  taken  thou- 
sands of  visitors  through  the  castle — it  was  never  inhabited 
more  than  a  month  or  two  a  year  even  before  the  war — 
and  the  only  thing  that  had  ever  been  stolen  was  one  of 
the  carved  ivory  table-croquet  mallets,  which  had  been 
taken  by  an  American  Red  Cross  nurse.  I  was  forced  to 
admit  that  we  had  people  like  that,  even  in  America.  In 
the  royal  chapel — now  an  American  Protestant  church — 
the  place  usually  taken  by  the  pipe  organ  served  as  a  half- 
hidden  balcony  for  the  Kaiser,  with  three  glaring  red-plush 
chairs — those  ugly  red-plush  chairs,  no  one  of  which  looked 
comfortable  enough  actually  to  sit  in,  screamed  at  one  all 
over  the  building — with  a  similar,  simpler  embrasure  op- 
posite for  the  emperor's  personal  servants.  The  main 
floor  below  was  fully  militarized,  like  all  Germany,  the 
pews  on  the  right  side  being  reserved  for  the  army  and 
inscribed  with  large  letters  from  front  to  rear — "Generali- 
tat,"  "General  Kommando,"  "Offiziere  und  Hochbeam- 

46 


GERMANY  UNDER  THE  AMERICAN  HEEL 

ter,"  and  so  on,  in  careful  order  of  rank.  Red  slip-covers 
with  a  design  of  crowns  endlessly  repeated  protected  from 
dust  most  of  the  furniture  in  the  salons  and  drawing-rooms, 
and  incidentally  shielded  the  eye,  for  the  furniture  itself 
was  far  uglier  than  the  covering. 

The  most  pompous  of  nouveaux  riches  could  not  have 
shown  more  evidence  of  self-worship  in  their  decorations. 
Immense  paintings  of  themselves  and  of  their  ancestors 
covered  half  the  Hohenzollern  walls,  showing  them  in 
heroic  attitudes  and  gigantic  size,  alone  with  the  world  at 
their  feet,  or  in  the  very  thick  of  battles,  looking  calm, 
collected,  and  unafraid  amid  generals  and  followers  who, 
from  Bismarck  down,  had  an  air  of  fear  which  the  royal 
central  figure  discountenanced  by  contrast.  Huge  por- 
traits of  princes,  kurfursten,  emperors,  a  goodly  percentage 
of  them  looking  not  quite  intelligent  enough  to  make  effi- 
cient night-watchmen,  stared  haughtily  from  all  sides.  A 
picture  of  the  old  Hohenzollern  castle,  from  which  the 
family — and  many  of  the  world's  woes — originally  sprang, 
occupied  a  prominent  place,  as  an  American  "Napoleon 
of  finance"  might  hang  in  his  Riverside  drawing-room  a 
painting  of  the  old  farm  from  which  he  set  out  to  conquer 
the  earth.  Much  alleged  art  by  members  of  the  royal 
family,  as  fondly  preserved  as  Lizzy's  first — and  last — school 
drawing,  stood  on  easels  or  tables  in  prominent,  insistent 
positions.  Presents  from  the  Sultan  were  particularly  nu- 
merous, among  them  massive  metal  tablets  with  bits  in 
Arabic  from  the  Koran.  One  of  these  read,  according  to 
the  caretaker,  "He  who  talks  least  says  most."  Unfortu- 
nately, the  Kaiser  could  not  read  Arabic,  hence  the  particu- 
larly pertinent  remark  was  lost  upon  him.  In  an  obscure 
corner  hung  one  of  the  inevitable  German  cuckoo  clocks, 
placed  there,  if  my  guide  was  not  mistaken,  by  a  former 
empress  in  memory  of  the  spot  where  she  plighted  her  troth. 
Poor,  petty  little  romances  of  royalty!  Probably  it  was 

47 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

not  so  much  coquetry  as  an  effort  to  escape  the  pseudo- 
magnificence  of  those  appalling  rooms  that  drove  her  into 
the  corner.  How  could  any  one  be  comfortable,  either 
in  mind  or  in  body,  with  such  junk  about  them,  much  less 
pass  the  romantic  hours  of  life  in  their  midst?  I  should 
much  have  preferred  to  have  my  Verlobungskuss  in  a  railway 
station. 

Only  the  library  of  the  ex-empress,  with  its  German, 
French,  and  English  novels  and  its  works  of  piety,  showed 
any  sign  of  real  human  individuality.  Her  favorite  picture 
hung  there — a  painting  showing  a  half-starved  woman  weep- 
ing and  praying  over  an  emaciated  child,  called  "The 
Efficacy  of  Prayer."  No  doubt  the  dear  empress  got  much 
sentimental  solace  out  of  it — just  before  the  royal  dinner 
was  announced.  The  Kaiser's  private  sleeping-room,  on 
the  other  hand,  was  simplicity  itself — far  less  sumptuous 
than  my  own  a  few  blocks  away.  He  had  last  slept  there, 
said  the  caretaker,  in  the  autumn  of  1914,  while  moving 
toward  the  western  front  with  his  staff. 

"And  all  this  belongs  to  the  state  now,  since  Germany 
has  become  a  republic?"  I  remarked. 

"Only  a  part  of  it,"  replied  my  guide.  "We  are  making 
up  lists  of  the  private  and  crown  property,  and  his  own 
possessions  will  be  returned  to  the  Kaiser." 

The  outstanding  feature  of  the  visit  was  not  the  castle 
itself,  however,  but  the  attitude  of  this  lifelong  servant  of 
the  imperial  owner.  The  assertion  that  no  man  is  a  hero 
to  his  valet  applies,  evidently,  clear  up  to  emperors.  The 
caretaker  was  a  former  soldier  in  a  Jager  and  forestry  battal- 
ion, born  in  the  Turingerwald  fifty-six  years  ago,  a  man 
of  intelligence  and  not  without  education.  He  had  been 
one  of  hundreds  who  applied  for  a  position  in  the  imperial 
household  in  1882,  winning  the  coveted  place  because  he 
came  "with  an  armful  of  fine  references."  To  him  the 
Kaiser  and  all  his  clan  were  just  ordinary  men,  for  whom  he 

48 


GERMANY  UNDER  THE  AMERICAN  HEEL 

evidently  felt  neither  reverence  nor  disdain.  Nor,  I  am 
sure,  was  he  posing  democracy;  he  looked  too  tired  and 
indifferent  to  play  a  part  for  the  benefit  of  my  uniform. 
The  many  gossipy  tales  of  royalty,  semi-nobility,  and  igno- 
bility  with  which  he  spiced  our  stroll  were  told  neither  with 
ill  feeling  nor  with  boastf ulness ;  they  were  merely  his  every- 
day thoughts,  as  a  printer  might  talk  of  his  presses  or  a 
farmer  of  his  crops. 

Wilhelm  der  Erste,  the  first  Kaiser,  was  a  good  man  in 
every  way,  he  asserted.  He  had  seen  him  die.  He  had  been 
called  to  bring  him  his  last  glass  of  water.  Bismarck  and  a 
dozen  others  were  gathered  about  his  bed,  most  of  them 
kneeling — the  picture  of  Bismarck  on  his  knees  was  not 
easy  to  visualize  somehow — "and  the  emperor  died  with 
great  difficulty" — my  informant  demonstrated  his  last 
moments  almost  too  realistically.  The  Kaiser — he  who 
wrecked  the  Hohenzollern  ship — was  a  very  ordinary  man, 
possibly  something  above  the  average  in  intelligence,  but 
he  did  not  have  a  fair  chance  in  life.  There  was  his  useless 
arm,  and  then  his  ear.  For  forty  years  he  had  suffered 
atrociously  from  an  abscess  in  his  left  ear.  The  caretaker 
had  seen  him  raging  mad  with  it.  No  treatment  ever 
helped  him.  No,  it  was  not  cancer,  though  his  mother  died 
of  that  after  inhuman  suffering,  but  it  was  getting  nearer 
and  nearer  to  his  brain,  and  he  could  not  last  many  years 
now.  Then  there  was  his  arm.  No,  it  was  not  inherited, 
but  resulted  from  the  criminal  carelessness  of  a  midwife. 
For  years  he  used  an  apparatus  in  the  hope  of  getting  some 
strength  into  that  arm,  tying  his  left  hand  to  a  lever  and 
working  it  back  and  forth  with  his  right.  But  it  never  did 
any  good.  He  never  got  to  the  point  where  he  could  lift 
that  arm  without  taking  hold  of  it  with  the  other.  He 
grew  extraordinarily  clever  in  covering  up  his  infirmity; 
when  he  rode  he  placed  the  reins  in  the  useless  left  hand 
with  the  right,  and  few  would  have  realized  that  they  were 

49 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

just  lying  there,  without  any  grasp  on  them  at  all.  He 
kept  that  arm  out  of  photographs;  he  kept  it  turned  away 
from  the  public  with  a  success  that  was  almost  superhuman. 
On  the  whole,  he  was  a  man  with  a  good  mind.  "No  one 
of  average  intelligence  can  help  being  a  knowing  man  if  he 
has  Ministers  and  counselors  and  all  the  wise  men  of  the  realm 
coming  to  him  every  day  and  telling  him  everything."  But 
he  had  too  much  power,  too  much  chance  to  rule.  He  dis- 
missed Bismarck,  "a  man  such  as  there  is  only  one  born 
in  a  century,"  when  he  was  himself  still  far  too  young  to  be 
his  own  Chancellor.  He  never  could  take  advice;  when  his 
Ministers  came  to  him  they  were  not  allowed  to  tell  him 
what  they  thought ;  they  could  only  salute  and  do  what  he 
ordered  them  to  do.  And  he  never  understood  that  he 
should  choose  his  words  with  care  because  they  made 
more  impression  than  those  of  an  ordinary  man. 

It  was  only  when  I  chanced  upon  his  favorite  theme — 
we  had  returned  to  his  little  lodge,  decorated  with  the 
antlers  and  tusks  that  were  the  trophies  of  his  happiest 
days — that  the  caretaker  showed  any  actual  enthusiasm 
for  the  ex-Kaiser.  I  asked  if  it  were  true  that  the  former 
emperor  was  a  good  shot.  "Ausgezeichnet!"  he  cried,  his 
weary  eyes  lighting  up ;  "he  was  a  marvelous  shot!  I  have 
myself  seen  him  kill  more  than  eight  hundred  creatures  in 
one  day — and  do  not  forget  that  he  had  to  shoot  with  one 
arm  at  that."  He  did  not  mention  how  much  better 
record  than  that  the  War  Lord  had  made  on  the  western 
front,  nor  the  precautions  his  long  experience  in  the  "hunt- 
ing-field" had  taught  him  to  take  against  any  possible 
reprisal  by  his  stalked  and  cornered  game. 

The  Crown  Prince,  he  had  told  me  somewhere  along  the 
way  in  the  oppressive  royal  museum,  was  a  very  nice  little 
boy,  but  his  educators  spoiled  him.  Since  manhood  he 
had  been  "somewhat  leichtsinnig" — it  was  the  same  expres- 
sion, the  old  refrain,  that  I  had  heard  wherever  the  Kaiser's 

So 


GERMANY  UNDER  THE  AMERICAN  HEEL 

heir  was  mentioned — "and  his  mind  runs  chiefly  on  women." 
In  one  of  the  rooms  we  had  paused  before  a  youthful  por- 
trait of  Queen  Victoria.  "I  have  seen  her  often,"  remarked 
my  guide,  in  his  colorless  voice.  "She  came  often  to  visit 
us,  at  many  of  the  palaces,  and  the  first  thing  she  invariably 
called  for  the  moment  she  arrived  was  cognac."  It  may 
have  been  merely  a  little  side-slap  at  the  hated  English, 
but  there  was  something  in  that  particular  portrait  that 
suggested  that  the  queen  would  have  made  a  very  lively 
little  grisette,  had  fate  chanced  to  cast  her  in  that  rdle. 

Bismarck  was  plainly  the  old  servant's  favorite  among 
the  titled  throng  he  had  served  and  observed.  "When  the 
second  Kaiser  died, "he  reminisced,  "after  his  very  short  reign 
— he  was  a  good  man,  too,  though  proud — he  gave  me  a 
message  that  I  was  to  hand  over  to  Bismarck  himself,  in 
person.  The  long  line  of  courtiers  were  aghast  when  I 
insisted  on  seeing  him;  they  stared  angrily  when  I  was 
admitted  ahead  of  them  to  his  private  study.  I  knocked, 
and  there  was  a  noise  inside  between  a  grunt  and  a  growl" — 
some  of  our  own  dear  colonels,  I  mused,  had  at  least  that 
much  Bismarckian  about  them — "and  after  I  opened  the 
door  I  had  to  peer  about  for  some  time  before  I  could  see 
where  he  was,  the  tobacco  smoke  was  so  thick.  He  always 
smoked  like  that.  But  he  was  an  easy  man  to  talk  to, 
if  you  really  had  a  good  reason  for  coming  to  see  him,  and 
I  had.  When  I  went  out  all  the  courtiers  stared  at  me  with 
wonder,  but  I  just  waved  a  hand  to  them  and  said,  'The 
audience  is  over,  gentlemen!'  Ah  yes,  I  have  seen  much 
in  my  day,  aber"  he  concluded,  resignedly,  as  he  accompanied 
me  to  the  door  of  his  lodge,  "alle  diese  gute  Zeiten  sind  leider 
vorbei." 
5 


Ill 

THOU   SHALT  NOT   .    .    .   FRATERNIZE 

r"PHE  armies  of  occupation  have  been  credited  with  the 
•1  discovery  of  a  new  crime,  one  not  even  implied  in  the 
Ten  Commandments.  Indeed,  misinformed  mortals  have 
usually  listed  it  among  the  virtues.  It  is  "fraternization." 
The  average  American — unless  his  habitat  be  New  England 
— cannot  remain  aloof  and  haughty.  Particularly  the 
unsophisticated  doughboy,  bubbling  over  with  life  and 
spirits,  is  given  to  making  friends  with  whatever  branch  of 
the  human  family  he  chances  to  find  about  him.  More- 
over, he  was  grateful  for  the  advance  in  material  comfort, 
if  not  in  friendliness,  of  Germany  as  compared  with  the 
mutilated  portion  of  France  he  had  known.  He  did  not, 
in  most  cases,  stop  to  think  that  it  was  the  war  which  had 
made  those  differences.  It  was  an  every-day  experience 
to  hear  some  simple  country  boy  in  khaki  remark  to  his 
favorite  officer  in  a  slow,  puzzled  voice,  "Sa-ay,  Lieutenant, 
you  know  I  like  these  here  Boshies  a  lot  better  than  them 
there  Frogs."  The  wrangles  and  jealousies  with  their 
neighbors,  on  which  the  overcrowded  peoples  of  Europe 
feed  from  infancy,  were  almost  unsuspected  by  these  grown- 
up children  from  the  wide  land  of  opportunity.  The  French 
took  alarm.  There  seemed  to  be  danger  that  the  sale 
Boche  would  win  over  les  Am&ricains,  at  least  the  sympathy 
of  the  men  in  the  ranks,  by  his  insidious  "propaganda." 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  doubt  whether  he  could  have  done  so. 

52 


THOU  SHALT  NOT  .  .  .  FRATERNIZE 

The  Germans  rather  overdid  their  friendliness.  Particularly 
when  it  bore  any  suggestion  of  cringing,  deliberate  or 
natural,  it  defeated  itself,  for,  simple  as  he  may  be  in  matters 
outside  his  familiar  sphere,  the  American  soldier  has  an 
almost  feminine  intuition  in  catching,  eventually,  a  some- 
what hazy  but  on  the  whole  true  conception  of  the  real 
facts.  But  our  allies  were  taking  no  chances.  A  categori- 
cal order — some  say  it  emanated  from  Foch  himself — 
warned  the  armies  of  occupation  that  there  must  be  "no 
fraternization." 

The  interpretation  of  the  order  varied.  As  was  to  be 
expected,  the  Americans  carried  it  out  more  rigorously 
than  did  their  three  allies  along  the  Rhine.  Its  application 
also  differed  somewhat  in  separate  regions  within  our  own 
area.  At  best  complete  enforcement  was  impossible. 
With  soldiers  billeted  in  every  house,  what  was  to  hinder  a 
lovelorn  buck  from  making  friends  with  the  private  who 
was  billeted  in  her  house  and  going  frequently  to  visit  him? 
On  cold  winter  evenings  one  rarely  passed  a  pair  of  Ameri- 
can sentries  beside  their  little  coal-fires  without  seeing  a 
slouchy  youth  or  two  in  the  ugly  round  cap  without  vizor 
which  we  had  so  long  associated  only  with  prisoners  of 
war,  or  a  few  shivering  and  hungry  girls,  hovering  in  the 
vicinity,  eying  the  soldiers  with  an  air  which  suggested 
that  they  were  willing  to  give  anything  for  a  bit  of  warmth 
or  the  leavings  of  the  food  the  sentries  were  gorging. 
Whether  they  merely  wanted  company  or  aspired  to  soap 
and  chocolate,  there  was  nothing  to  prevent  them  getting 
warmer  when  there  were  no  officers  in  sight. 

The  soldiers  had  their  own  conception  of  the  meaning 
of  fraternization.  Buying  a  beer,  for  instance,  was  not 
fraternizing;  tipping  the  waiter  who  served  it  was — unless 
he  happened  to  be  an  attractive  barmaid.  Taking  a  walk 
or  shaking  hands  with  a  German  man  was  to  disobey  the 
order;  strolling  in  the  moonlight  with  his  sister,  or  even 

S3 


kissing  her  under  cover  of  a  convenient  tree-trunk,  was  not 
The  interrelation  of  our  warriors  and  the  civilian  population 
was  continually  popping  up  in  curious  little  details.  To 
the  incessant  demand  of  children  for  "Schewing  Kum," 
as  familiar,  if  more  guttural,  as  in  France,  the  regulation 
answer  was  no  longer  "No  compree,"  but  "No  fraternize." 
Boys  shrilling  "Along  the  Wabash"  or  "Over  There,  "  little 
girls  innocently  calling  out  to  a  shocked  passer-by  in  khaki 
some  phrase  that  is  more  common  to  a  railroad  construction 
gang  than  to  polite  society,  under  the  impression  that  it  was 
a  kindly  word  of  greeting,  showed  how  the  American  in- 
fluence was  spreading.  "Snell"  had  taken  the  place  of 
"toot  sweet"  in  the  soldier  vocabulary.  German  schools 
of  the  future  are  likely  to  teach  that  "spuds  "  is  the  American 
word  for  what  the  "verdammte  Englander"  calls  potatoes. 
When  German  station-guards  ran  along  the  platforms 
shouting,  "Vorsicht!"  at  the  approach  of  a  train,  American 
soldiers  with  a  touch  of  the  native  tongue  translated  it 
into  their  lingo  and  added  a  warning,  "Heads  up!"  The 
adaptable  Boche  caught  the  words — or  thought  he  did — 
and  thereafter  it  was  no  unusual  experience  to  hear  the 
arrival  of  a  Schnellzug  prefaced  with  shouts  of,  "Hets  ub!" 
In  the  later  days  of  the  occupation  the  Yank  was  more 
apt  to  be  wearing  a  "Gott  mit  Uns"  belt  than  the  narrow 
web  one  issued  by  his  supply  company,  and  that  belt  was 
more  likely  than  not  to  be  girdled  round  with  buttons  and 
metal  rosettes  from  German  uniforms,  as  the  original 
American  wore  the  scalps  of  his  defeated  enemies.  Our 
intelligence  police  frequently  ran  down  merchants  or  manu- 
facturers guilty  of  violating  the  fraternization  order  by 
making  or  offering  for  sale  articles  with  the  German  and  the 
American  flags  intertwined,  pewter  rings  bearing  the  in- 
signia of  some  American  division  and  the  iron  cross ;  alleged 
meerschaum  pipes  decorated  with  some  phrase  expressive 
of  Germany's  deep  love  for  America  in  spite  of  the  recent 

54 


THOU  SHALT  NOT  .  .  .  FRATERNIZE 

"misunderstanding."  The  wiseacres  saw  in  all  this  a 
subtle  "propaganda,"  cleverly  directed  from  Berlin.  I 
doubt  whether  it  was  anything  more  than  the  German 
merchant's  incorrigible  habit  of  making  what  he  can  sell, 
of  fitting  his  supply  to  his  customer's  wishes,  however 
absurd  these  may  seem  to  him. 

Up  to  the  ist  of  February  Americans  on  detached  ser- 
vice in  Germany  ate  where  they  chose.  With  the  non- 
fraternization  order  came  the  command  to  patronize  only 
the  restaurants  run  by  the  army  or  its  auxiliary  societies. 
The  purpose  was  double — to  shut  another  avenue  to  the 
fraternizer  and  to  leave  to  the  Germans  their  own  scanty 
food  store.  This  question  of  two  widely  different  sources 
of  supply  side  by  side  required  constant  vigilance.  When 
two  lakes  of  vastly  different  levels  are  separated  only  by 
a  thin  wall  it  is  to  be  expected  that  a  bit  of  water  from  the 
upper  shall  spill  over  into  the  lower.  A  pound  can  of  cocoa 
cost  50  marks  in  a  German  shop — if  it  could  be  had  at  all ; 
a  better  pound  sold  for  i  mk.  25  in  our  commissary.  A 
can  of  butter  for  which  a  well-to-do  citizen  would  gladly 
have  given  a  week's  income  was  only  a  matter  of  a  couple 
of  dollars  for  the  man  in  khaki.  A  bar  of  soap,  a  tablet  of 
chocolate,  a  can  of  jam,  many  of  the  simple  little  things 
that  had  become  unattainable  luxuries  to  the  mass  of  the 
people  about  us,  cost  us  no  more  than  they  did  at  home 
before  the  war.  Even  if  there  was  no  tendency  to  profit 
by  these  wide  discrepancies — and  with  the  vast  percentage 
of  our  soldiers  there  was  not — the  natural  tender-hearted- 
ness of  America's  fighting-man  moved  him  to  transgress 
orders  a  bit  in  favor  of  charity.  Much  as  one  may  hate  the 
Boche,  it  is  hard  to  watch  an  anemic  little  child  munch  a 
bare  slice  of  disgusting  war-bread,  knowing  that  you  can 
purchase  a  big  white  loaf  made  of  genuine  flour  for  a  paltry 
ten  cents. 

There  were  curious  ramifications  in  this  "fraternization" 

55 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

question.  Thus,  what  of  the  American  lieutenant  whose 
father  came  over  from  his  home  in  Dusseldorf  or  Mannheim 
to  visit  his  son?  By  strict  letter  of  the  law  they  should 
not  speak  to  each  other.  What  advice  could  one  give  a 
Russian-American  soldier  whose  brother  was  a  civilian  in 
Coblenz?  What  should  the  poor  Yank  do  whose  German 
mother  wired  him  that  she  was  coming  from  Leipzig  to 
see  him,  little  guessing  that  for  him  to  be  seen  in  public 
with  any  woman  not  in  American  uniform  was  an  invitation 
to  the  first  M.  P.  who  saw  him  to  add  to  the  disgruntled 
human  collection  in  the  "brig"? 

I  chanced  to  be  the  "goat"  in  a  curious  and  embarrassing 
situation  that  grew  quite  naturally  out  of  the  non-fraterniz- 
ing order.  It  was  down  the  river  at  Andernach,  a  town 
which,  in  the  words  of  the  doughboy,  boasts  "the  only 
cold-water  geyser  in  the  world — except  the  Y.  M.  C.  A." 
A  divisional  staff  had  taken  over  the  "palace"  of  a  family 
of  the  German  nobility,  who  had  fled  to  Berlin  at  our 
approach.  One  day  the  daughter  of  the  house  unexpectedly 
returned,  alone  but  for  a  maid.  She  happened  to  be  not 
merely  young  and  beautiful — far  above  the  average  German 
level  in  the  latter  regard — but  she  had  all  those  outward 
attractions  which  good  breeding  and  the  unremitting  care 
of  trained  guardians  from  birth  to  maturity  give  the  fortu- 
nate members  of  the  human  family.  She  was  exactly  the 
type  the  traveler  in  foreign  lands  is  always  most  anxious 
to  meet,  and  least  successful  in  meeting.  On  the  evening 
of  her  arrival  the  senior  officer  of  the  house  thought  to 
soften  the  blow  of  her  unpleasant  home-coming  by  inviting 
her  to  dinner  with  her  unbidden  guests.  The  little  circle 
was  charmed  with  her  tout  ensemble.  They  confided  to 
one  another  that  she  would  stand  comparison  with  any 
American  girl  they  had  ever  met — which  was  the  highest 
tribute  in  their  vocabulary.  She  seemed  to  find  the  com- 
pany agreeable  herself.  As  they  rose  from  the  table  she 

56 


THOU  SHALT  NOT  ...  FRATERNIZE 

asked  what  time  breakfast  would  be  served  in  the  morning. 
Thanks  to  the  uncertainty  of  her  English,  she  had  mistaken 
the  simple  courtesy  for  a  "standing  invitation." 

The  officers  looked  at  one  another  with  mute  appeal  in 
their  eyes.  Nothing  would  have  pleased  them  better  than 
to  have  their  grim  circle  permanently  graced  by  so  charm- 
ing an  addition.  But  what  of  the  new  order  against  frat- 
ernization? Some  day  an  inspector  might  drift  in,  or  the 
matter  reach  the  erect  ears  of  that  mysterious  and  dreaded 
department  hidden  under  the  pseudonym  of  "G-2-B." 
Besides,  the  officers  were  all  conscientious  young  men  who 
took  army  orders  seriously  and  scorned  to  use  any  sophistry 
in  their  interpretation.  Furthermore,  though  it  hurt  keenly 
to  admit  such  a  slanderous  thought,  it  was  within  the  range 
of  possibilities  that  the  young  lady  was  a  spy,  sent  here 
with  the  very  purpose  of  trying  to  ingratiate  herself  into  the 
circle  which  had  so  naively  opened  itself  to  her.  It  was 
known  that  her  family  had  been  in  personal  touch  with  the 
Kaiser;  for  all  her  "American  manner, "  she  made  no  secret 
of  being  German  through  and  through.  What  could  have 
been  more  in  keeping  with  the  methods  of  Wilhelmstrasse 
than  the  suggestion  that  she  return  to  her  own  home  and 
pass  on  to  Berlin  any  rumors  she  might  chance  to  pick  up 
from  her  unwelcome  guests? 

Plainly  she  must  be  gotten  rid  of  at  once.  None  of  the 
officers,  however,  felt  confidence  enough  in  his  German 
to  put  it  to  so  crucial  a  test.  Whence,  it  being  my  fortune 
to  drop  in  on  a  friend  among  the  perplexed  Americans  just 
at  that  moment,  I  was  unanimously  appointed  to  the  gentle 
task  of  banishing  the  lady  from  her  own  dining-room. 

It  was  at  the  end  of  a  pleasant  little  luncheon — the  sixth 
meal  which  the  daughter  of  the  house  had  graciously  at- 
tended. The  conversation  had  been  enlightening,  the  at- 
mosphere most  congenial,  the  young  lady  more  unostenta- 
tiously beautiful  than  ever.  We  reduced  the  audience  to 

57 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

her  coming  humiliation  as  low  as  possible  by  softly  dis- 
missing the  junior  members,  swallowed  our  throats,  and 
began.  Nothing,  we  assured  her,  had  been  more  pleasant 
to  us  since  our  arrival  in  Germany  than  the  privilege  of 
having  her  as  a  guest  at  our  simple  mess.  Nothing  we  could 
think  of — short  of  being  ordered  home  at  once — would 
have  pleased  us  more  than  to  have  her  permanently  grace 
our  board.  But  .  .  .  fortunately  our  stiff  uniform  collars 
helped  to  keep  our  throats  in  place  .  .  .  she  had  possibly 
heard  of  the  new  army  order,  a  perfectly  ridiculous  ruling, 
to  be  sure,  particularly  under  such  circumstances  as  these, 
but  an  army  order  for  all  that — and  no  one  could  know  better 
than  she,  the  daughter  and  granddaughter  of  German  high 
officers,  that  army  orders  are  meant  to  be  obeyed — wherein 
Pershing  himself  commanded  us  to  have  no  more  relations 
with  the  civilian  population  than  were  absolutely  unavoid- 
able. Wherefore  we  ...  we  ...  we  trusted  she  would 
understand  that  this  was  only  the  official  requirement  and 
in  no  way  represented  our  own  personal  inclinations  .  .  . 
we  were  compelled  to  request  that  she  confine  herself  there- 
after to  the  upper  floor  of  the  house,  as  her  presence  on 
our  floor  might  easily  be  misunderstood.  Her  maid  no 
doubt  could  prepare  her  meals,  or  there  was  a  hotel  a  few 
yards  up  the  street.  .  .  . 

The  charming  little  smile  of  gratitude  with  which  she 
had  listened  to  the  prelude  had  faded  to  a  puzzled  interest 
as  the  tone  deepened,  then  to  a  well-mastered  amazement 
at  the  effrontery  of  the  climax.  With  a  constrained,  "Is 
that  all?"  she  rose  to  her  feet,  and  as  we  kicked  our  chairs 
from  under  us  she  passed  out  with  a  genuinely  imperious 
carriage,  an  icy  little  bow,  her  beautiful  face  suffused  with 
a  crimson  that  would  have  made  a  mere  poppy  look  color- 
less by  comparison.  We  prided  ourselves  on  having  been 
extremely  diplomatic  in  our  handling  of  the  matter,  but 
no  member  of  that  mess  ever  again  received  anything 

58 


THOU  SHALT  NOT  .  .  .  FRATERNIZE 

better  than  the  barest  shadow  of  a  frigid  bow  from  the  young 
lady,  followed  at  a  respectful  distance  by  her  maid,  whom 
they  so  often  met  on  her  way  to  the  hotel  a  few  yards  up 
the  street. 

If  it  were  not  within  the  province  of  a  soldier  to  criti- 
cize orders,  one  might  question  whether  it  would  not  have 
been  better  to  allow  regulated  "fraternizing"  than  to 
attempt  to  suppress  it  entirely.  Our  soldiers,  perme- 
ated through  and  through,  whether  consciously  or  other- 
wise, with  many  of  those  American  ideals,  that  point  of 
view,  which  we  are  eager  for  the  German  Volk  to  grasp, 
that  there  may  be  no  more  kaisers  and  no  more  deliberately 
built-up  military  assaults  upon  the  world,  would  have  been 
the  most  effective  propaganda  in  our  favor  that  could  have 
been  devised  to  loose  upon  the  German  nation.  Merely 
their  naive  little  stories  of  how  they  live  at  home  would 
in  time  have  awakened  a  discontent  in  certain  matters, 
spiritual  rather  than  material,  that  would  have  been  most 
salutary.  But  we  committed  our  customary  and  familiar 
American  error  of  refusing  to  compromise  with  human 
nature,  of  attempting  impossible  suppression  instead  of 
accepting  possible  regulation,  with  the  result  that  those 
ineradicable  plants  that  might  have  grown  erect  and  gay 
in  the  sunshine  developed  into  pale-faced,  groveling  mon- 
strosities in  the  cellars  and  hidden  corners.  Our  allies 
in  the  neighboring  areas  had  the  same  non-fraternizing 
order,  yet  by  not  attempting  to  swallow  it  whole  they 
succeeded,  probably,  in  digesting  it  better. 

There  was  a  simple  little  way  of  fraternizing  in  Coblenz 
without  risking  the  heavy  hand  of  an  M.  P.  on  your  shoulder. 
It  was  to  just  have  it  happen  by  merest  chance  that  the 
seat  of  the  Frdulein  who  had  taken  your  eye  be  next  your 
own  at  the  municipal  theater.  It  grew  increasingly  popular 
with  both  officers  and  enlisted  men,  that  modest  little 
StadUheater.  The  Germans  who,  before  our  arrival,  had 

59 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

been  able  to  drift  in  at  the  last  moment  and  be  sure  of  a 
seat,  were  forced  to  come  early  in  the  day  and  stand  in  line 
as  if  before  a  butter-shop.  The  Kronloge,  or  royal  box, 
belonged  now  to  the  general  commanding  the  Army  of 
Occupation — until  six  each  evening,  when  its  eighteen 
seats  might  be  disposed  of  to  ordinary  people,  though  the 
occupants  even  in  that  case  were  more  likely  than  not  to 
be  girdled  by  the  Sam  Browne  belt.  Some  observers  make 
the  encouraging  assertion  that  there  will  be  more  devotees 
of  opera  in  America  when  the  quarter-million  who  kept 
the  watch  on  the  Rhine  return  home.  There  was  a  tendency 
to  drift  more  and  more  toward  the  Stadttheater,  even  on  the 
part  of  some  whom  no  one  would  have  dared  to  accuse  of 
aspiring  to  "high-brow"  rating,  though  it  must  be  admitted 
that  the  "rag"  and  "jazz"  and  slap-stick  to  which  the 
"Y"  and  similar  well-meaning  camp-followers,  steeped  in 
the  "tired  business  man"  fallacy,  felt  obliged  to  confine 
their  efforts  in  entertaining  "the  boys,"  did  not  play  to 
empty  houses. 

The  little  Stadttheater  gave  the  principal  operas,  not  merely 
of  Germany,  but  of  France  and  Italy,  and  occasional  plays, 
chiefly  from  their  own  classics.  They  were  usually  well 
staged,  though  long  drawn  out,  after  the  manner  of  the 
German,  who  can  seldom  say  his  say  in  a  few  succinct 
words  and  be  done  as  can  the  Frenchman.  The  operas,  too, 
had  a  heaviness  in  spots — such  as  those,  for  instance,  under 
the  feet  of  the  diaphanous  nymphs  of  one  hundred  and  sixty- 
five  pounds  each  who  cavorted  about  the  trembling  stage — 
which  did  not  exactly  recall  the  Opera  in  Paris.  But  it 
would  be  unfair  to  compare  the  artistic  advantages  of  a  city 
of  eighty  thousand  with  those  of  the  "capital  of  the  world." 
Probably  the  performances  in  Coblenz  would  have  rivaled 
those  in  any  but  the  two  or  three  largest  French  cities,  and 
it  would  be  a  remarkable  town  "back  in  little  old  U.  S.  A." 
that  could  boast  such  a  theater,  offering  the  best  things 

60 


THOU  SHALT  NOT  .  .  .  FRATERNIZE 

of  the  stage  at  prices  quite  within  reach  of  ordinary  people. 
When  one  stopped  to  reflect,  those  prices  were  astonishing. 
The  best  seat  in  the  Kronloge  was  but  5  mk.  50,  a  bare  half- 
dollar  then,  only  $1.25  at  the  normal  pre-war  exchange,  and 
accommodations  graded  down  to  quite  tolerable  places  in 
whatever  the  Germans  call  their  "peanut  gallery"  at  nine 
cents!  All  of  which  does  not  mean  that  the  critical  opera- 
goer  would  not  gladly  endure  the  quintupled  cost  for  the 
privilege  of  attending  a  performance  at  the  Opera  Comique 
at  Paris. 

The  question  of  fraternization  and  the  ubiquitous  one  of 
German  food  shortage  were  not  without  their  connection. 
Intelligence  officers  were  constantly  running  down  rumors 
of  too  much  sympathy  of  our  soldiers  for  the  hungry  pop- 
ulation. The  assertion  that  Germany  had  been  "starved 
to  her  knees,"  however,  was  scarcely  borne  out  by  observa- 
tions in  the  occupied  area.  It  is  true  that  in  Coblenz 
even  the  authorized  quantities — seven  pounds  of  potatoes, 
two  hundred  grams  of  meat,  seven  ounces  of  sugar,  and  so  on 
per  person  each  week,  were  high  in  price  and  not  always 
available.  Milk  for  invalids  and  those  under  seven  was 
easier  to  order  than  to  obtain.  A  notice  in  the  local  papers 
to  "Bring  your  egg  and  butter  tickets  on  Monday  and  get 
two  cold-storage  eggs  and  forty  grams  of  oleomargarine" 
was  cause  for  town-wide  rejoicing.  Poor  old  horses  that  had 
faithfully  served  the  A.  E.  F.  to  the  end  of  their  strength 
were  easily  auctioned  at  prices  averaging  a  thousand  marks 
each,  in  spite  of  the  requirement  that  a  certificate  be  pro- 
duced within  a  week  showing  where  they  had  been  slaugh- 
tered. There  was  always  a  certain  Schleichhandel,  or  under- 
hand dealing,  going  on  between  the  wealthy  in  the  cities 
and  the  well-stocked  peasants.  Rancid  butter,  to  be  had 
"f  excellent  quality  before  the  war  at  two  marks,  cost  in 
"underground"  commerce  anything  from  fifty  marks  up 
which  the  happy  man  who  found  it  was  in  a  condition  to 

61 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

pay.  Contrasted  with  this  picture,  the  wages  of  an  eight- 
hour  day  were  seldom  over  five  marks  for  unskilled,  or  more 
than  ten  for  skilled  labor.  The  out-of-work-insurance 
system,  less  prevalent  in  our  area  than  "over  in  Germany," 
made  it  almost  an  advantage  to  be  unemployed.  A  citizen 
of  Dusseldorf  offered  a  wanderer  in  the  streets  eight  marks 
for  a  day's  work  in  his  stable.  Many  a  man  would  gladly 
have  done  the  task  for  three  marks  before  the  war.  The 
wanderer  cursed  the  citizen  roundly.  "You  have  the 
audacity,"  he  cried,  "to  ask  me  to  toil  all  day  for  two 
marks!"  "Two  marks?"  gasped  the  citizen;  "you  misun- 
derstood me.  I  said  eight."  "I  heard  you  say  eight," 
shouted  the  workman,  "and  is  not  eight  just  two  more  than 
the  six  we  get  under  the  unemployment  act?  Pest  with 
your  miserable  two  marks!  If  you  want  to  pay  me  ten 
for  the  day — that  is,  sixteen  in  all  ..."  He  did  not  add 
that  by  going  out  into  the  country  with  his  unearned  six 
marks  he  could  buy  up  food  and  return  to  the  city  to  sell 
it  at  a  handsome  profit,  but  the  citizen  did  not  need  to  be 
reminded  of  that  oppressive  fact. 

It  was  under  such  conditions  as  these  that  the  civilians 
about  us  lived  while  we  gorged  ourselves  on  the  full  army 
ration  in  the  hotels  and  restaurants  we  had  taken  over. 
There  was  always  a  long  and  eager  waiting  line  where  any 
employment  of  civilians  by  the  Americans  carried  with  it 
the  right  to  army  food;  in  many  cases  it  became  necessary 
to  confine  the  opportunity  to  war  widows  or  others  whose 
breadwinners  had  been  killed. 

A  man  who  rented  his  motor-boat  to  our  Marine  Corps 
at  forty-five  marks  a  day  and  food  for  himself  brought  his 
brother  along  without  charge,  both  of  them  living  well  on 
the  one  ration.  The  poor  undoubtedly  suffered.  Where 
haven't  they?  Where  do  they  not,  even  in  times  of  peace? 
So  did  we,  in  fact,  in  spite  of  our  unlimited  source  of  supply. 
For  the  barbarous  German  cooking  reduced  our  perfectly 

62 


THE  FORMER  CROWN  PRINCE  IN  HIS  OFFICIAL  FACE,   ATTENDING  THE  FUNERAL 

OF    A   GERMAN    OFFICER   AND    COUNT,    WHOSE   MILITARY   ORDERS   ARE   CARRIED 

ON   THE   CUSHION   IN   FRONT 


THE    HEIR    TO    THE    TOPPLED    THRONE    WEARING    HIS    UNOFFICIAL    AND    MORE 
CHARACTERISTIC    EXPRESSION 


BARGES   OF    AMERICAN   FOOD-STUFFS    ON   THEIR   WAY    UP   THE    RHINE 


BRITISH    TOMMIES    STOWING    THEMSELVES    AWAY    FOR    THE    NIGHT    ON  BARGES 
ANCHORED    NEAR   THE   HOLLAND   FRONTIER 


THOU  SHALT  NOT  .  .  .  FRATERNIZE 

respectable  fare  to  something  resembling  in  looks,  smell, 
and  taste  the  "scow"  of  a  British  forecastle.  In  France 
we  had  come  to  look  forward  to  meal-time  as  one  of  the 
pleasant  oases  of  existence;  on  the  Rhine  it  became  again 
just  a  necessary  ordeal  to  be  gotten  over  with  as  soon  as 
possible.  If  we  were  at  first  inclined  to  wonder  what  the 
chances  were  of  the  men  who  had  been  facing  us  with  ma- 
chine-guns three  months  before  poisoning  us  now,  it  soon 
died  out,  for  they  served  us  as  deferentially,  and  far  more 
quickly,  with  comparative  obliviousness  to  tips,  than  had 
the  gardens  beyond  the  Vosges. 

The  newspapers  complained  of  a  "physical  deterioration 
and  mental  degeneration  from  lack  of  nourishing  food 
that  often  results  in  a  complete  collapse  of  the  nervous 
system,  bringing  on  a  state  of  continual  hysteria."  We 
saw  something  of  this,  but  there  were  corresponding  advan- 
tages. Diabetes  and  similar  disorders  that  are  relieved 
by  the  starvation  treatment  had  vastly  decreased.  My 
host  complained  that  his  club,  a  regal  building  then  open 
only  to  American  officers,  had  lost  one-third  of  its  member- 
ship during  the  war,  not  in  numbers,  but  in  weight,  an 
average  of  sixty  pounds  each.  Judging  from  his  still  not 
diaphanous  form,  the  falling  off  had  been  an  advantage 
to  the  club's  appearance,  if  not  to  its  health.  But  one 
cannot  always  gage  the  health  and  resistance  of  the  German 
by  his  outward  appearance.  He  is  racially  gifted  with 
red  cheeks  and  plump  form.  The  South  American  Indian 
of  the  highlands  also  looks  the  picture  of  robust  health, 
yet  he  is  certainly  underfed  and  dies  easily.  In  a  well-to-do 
city  like  Coblenz  appearances  were  particularly  deceiving. 
The  bulk  of  the  population  was  so  well  housed,  so  well 
dressed,  outwardly  so  prosperous,  that  it  was  hard  to 
realize  how  greatly  man's  chief  necessity,  food,  was  lacking. 
In  many  a  mansion  to  open  the  door  at  meal-time  was  to 
catch  a  strong  scent  of  cheap  and  unsavory  cooking  that 

63 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

recalled  the  customary  aroma  of  our  lowest  tenements. 
Healthy  as  many  of  them  looked,  there  was  no  doubt  that 
for  the  past  year  or  two  the  Germans,  particularly  the  old 
and  the  very  young,  succumbed  with  surprising  rapidity 
to  ordinarily  unimportant  diseases.  If  successful  mer- 
chants were  beefy  and  war  profiteers  rotund,  they  were 
often  blue  under  the  eyes.  An  officer  of  the  chemical 
division  of  our  army  who  conducted  a  long  investigation 
within  the  occupied  area  found  that  while  the  bulk  of  food 
should  have  been  sufficient  to  keep  the  population  in  average 
health,  the  number  of  calories  was  barely  one-third  what 
the  human  engine  requires. 

The  chief  reason  for  this  was  that  food  had  become  more 
and  more  Ersatz — substitute  articles,  ranging  all  the  way 
from  "something  almost  as  good"  to  the  mere  shadow  of 
what  it  pretended  to  be.  "We  have  become  an  Ersatz 
nation,"  wailed  the  German  press,  "and  have  lost  in  con- 
sequence many  of  our  good  qualities.  Ersatz  butter, 
Ersatz  bread,  Ersatz  jam,  Ersatz  clothing — everything  is 
becoming  Ersatz."  A  firm  down  the  river  went  so  far  as 
to  announce  an  Ersatz  meat,  called  "Fino,"  which  was 
apparently  about  as  satisfactory  as  the  Ersatz  beer  which 
the  new  kink  in  the  Constitution  is  forcing  upon  Americans 
at  home.  Nor  was  the  substitution  confined  to  food 
articles,  though  in  other  things  the  lack  was  more  nearly 
amusing  than  serious.  Prisoners  taken  in  our  last  drives 
nearly  all  wore  Ersatz  shirts,  made  of  paper.  Envelopes 
bought  in  Germany  fell  quickly  apart  because  of  the  Ersatz 
paste  that  failed  to  do  its  duty.  Painters  labored  with 
Ersatz  daubing  material  because  the  linseed-oil  their  trade 
requires  had  become  Ersatz  lard  for  cooking  purposes. 
Rubber  seemed  to  be  the  most  conspicuous  scarcity,  at 
least  in  the  occupied  regions.  Bicycle  tires  ishowed  a 
curious  ingenuity;  suspenders  got  their  stretch  from  the 
weave  of  the  cloth;  galoshes  were  rarely  seen.  Leather, 

64 


THOU  SHALT  NOT  .  .  .  FRATERNIZE 

on  the  other  hand,  seemed  to  be  more  plentiful  than  we 
had  been  led  to  believe,  though  it  was  high  in  price.  The 
cobbler  paid  twenty-five  marks  a  pound  for  his  materials, 
and  must  have  a  leather- ticket  to  get  them;  real  shoes 
that  cost  seven  to  eight  marks  before  the  war  ran  now  as 
high  as  seventy.  A  tolerable  suit  of  civilian  clothing,  of 
which  there  was  no  scarcity  in  shop-windows,  sold  for 
three  or  four  hundred  marks,  no  more  at  our  exchange 
than  it  would  have  cost  on  Broadway,  though  neither  the 
material,  color,  nor  make  would  have  satisfied  the  fastidious 
Broadway  stroller.  After  the  military  stores  of  field-gray 
cloth  were  released  this  became  a  favorite  material,  not 
merely  for  men's  wear,  but  for  women's  cloaks  and  children's 
outer  garments.  Paper  was  decidedly  cheaper  than  in 
France ;  the  newspapers  considerably  larger.  The  thousand 
and  one  articles  of  every-day  life  showed  no  extraordinary 
scarcity  nor  anything  like  the  prices  of  France,  far  less 
self-supporting  than  Germany  in  these  matters.  Nor  was 
the  miscalled  "luxury  tax" — never  collected,  of  course, 
of  Americans  after  the  first  few  exemplary  punishments — 
anything  like  as  irksome  as  that  decreed  on  the  banks  of  the 
Seine.  That  the  burden  of  government  on  the  mass  of  the 
people  was  anything  but  light,  however,  was  demonstrated 
by  the  testimony  of  a  workman  in  our  provost  court  that  he 
earned  an  average  of  seventy-five  marks  a  week  and  paid 
one  hundred  and  twenty-five  marks  a  month  in  taxes! 

An  Ersatz  story  going  the  rounds  in  Coblenz  shows  to 
what  straits  matters  had  come,  as  well  as  disproving  the 
frequent  assertion  that  the  German  is  always  devoid  of  a 
sense  of  humor.  A  bondholder,  well-to-do  before  the  war, 
runs  the  yarn,  was  too  honest  or  too  lacking  in  foresight  to 
invest  in  something  bringing  war  profits,  with  the  result 
that  along  in  the  third  year  of  hostilities  he  found  himself 
approaching  a  penniless  state.  Having  lost  the  habit  of 
work,  and  being  too  old  to  acquire  it  again,  he  soon  found 

65 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

himself  in  a  sad  predicament.  What  most  irked  his  com- 
fort-loving soul,  however,  was  the  increasing  Ersatz-ness 
of  the  food  on  which  he  was  forced  to  subsist.  The  day 
came  when  he  could  bear  it  no  longer.  He  resolved  to 
commit  suicide.  Entering  a  drug-store,  he  demanded  an 
absurdly  large  dose  of  prussic  acid — and  paid  what  under 
other  conditions  would  have  been  a  heartbreaking  price 
for  it.  In  the  dingy  little  single  room  to  which  fortune 
had  reduced  him  he  wrote  a  letter  of  farewell  to  the  world, 
swallowed  the  .entire  prescription,  and  lay  down  to  die. 
For  some  time  nothing  happened.  He  had  always  been 
under  the  impression  that  prussic  acid  did  its  work  quickly. 
Possibly  he  had  been  misinformed.  He  could  wait.  He 
lighted  an  Ersatz  cigarette  and  settled  down  to  do  so.  Still 
nothing  befell  him.  He  stretched  out  on  his  sagging  bed 
with  the  patience  of  despair,  fell  asleep,  and  woke  up  late 
next  morning  feeling  none  the  worse  for  his  action. 

"Look  here,"  he  cried,  bursting  in  upon  the  druggist, 
"what  sort  of  merchant  are  you?  I  paid  you  a  fabulous 
price  for  a  large  dose  of  prussic  acid — I  am  tired  of  life  and 
want  to  die — and  the  stuff  has  not  done  me  the  least  harm ! " 

"Donner  und  Blitzen!"  gasped  the  apothecary.  "Why 
didn't  you  say  so?  I  would  have  warned  you  that  you 
were  probably  wasting  your  money.  You  know  every- 
thing in  the  shop  now  is  Ersatz,  and  I  have  no  way  of  know- 
ing whether  Ersatz  prussic  acid,  or  any  other  poison  I  have 
in  stock,  has  any  such  effect  on  the  human  system  as  does 
the  real  article." 

The  purchaser  left  with  angry  words,  slamming  the  door 
behind  him  until  the  Ersatz  plate-glass  in  it  crinkled  from 
the  impact.  He  marched  into  a  shop  opposite  and  bought 
a  rope,  returned  to  his  room,  and  hanged  himself.  But 
at  his  first  spasm  the  rope  broke.  He  cast  the  remnants 
from  him  and  stormed  back  into  the  rope-shop. 

"You  call  yourself  an  honest  German,"  he  screamed, 

66 


THOU  SHALT  NOT  .  .  .  FRATERNIZE 

"yet  you  sell  me,  at  a  rascally  price,  a  cord  that  breaks 
under  a  niggardly  strain  of  sixty  kilos!  I  am  tired  of  life. 
I  wanted  to  hang  myself.  I  .  .  ." 

"My  poor  fellow,"  said  the  merchant,  soothingly,  "you 
should  have  known  that  all  our  rope  is  Ersatz  now — made 
of  paper  .  .  ." 

"Things  have  come  to  a  pretty  pass,"  mumbled  the  victim 
of  circumstances  as  he  wandered  aimlessly  on  up  the  street. 
"A  man  can  no  longer  even  put  himself  out  of  his  misery. 
I  suppose  there  is  nothing  left  for  me  but  to  continue  to 
live,  Ersatz  and  all." 

He  shuffled  on  until  the  gnawing  of  hunger  became  well- 
nigh  unendurable,  turned  a  corner,  and  ran  into  a  long 
line  of  emaciated  fellow-citizens  before  a  municipal  soup- 
kitchen.  Falling  in  at  the  end  of  it,  he  worked  his  way 
forward,  paid  an  Ersatz  coin  for  a  bowl  of  Ersatz  stew, 
returned  to  his  lodging — and  died  in  twenty  minutes. 

6 


IV 

KNOCKING   ABOUT  THE   OCCUPIED   AREA 

IF  I  have  spoken  chiefly  of  Coblenz  in  attempting  to  picture 
the  American  army  in  Germany,  it  is  merely  because 
things  centered  there.  My  assignment  carried  me  every- 
where within  our  occupied  area,  and  several  times  through 
those  of  our  allies.  The  most  vivid  imagination  could 
not  have  pictured  any  such  Germany  as  this  when  I  tramped 
her  roads  fifteen,  twelve,  and  ten  years  before.  The  native 
population,  dense  as  it  is,  was  everywhere  inundated  by 
American  khaki.  The  roads  were  rivers  of  Yankee  soldiers, 
of  trucks  and  automobiles,  from  the  princely  limousines  of 
field-officers  and  generals  to  the  plebeian  Ford  or  side-car 
of  mere  lieutenants,  often  with  their  challenging  insignia — 
an  ax  through  a  Boche  helmet,  and  the  like — still  painted 
on  their  sides.  The  towns  and  villages  had  turned  from 
field  gray  to  olive  drab.  Remember  we  had  nine  divisions 
in  our  area,  and  an  American  division  in  column  covers 
nearly  forty  miles.  American  guards  with  fixed  bayonets 
patrolled  the  highways  in  pairs,  like  the  carabinieri  of  Italy 
and  the  guardias  civiles  of  Spain — though  they  were  often 
the  only  armed  men  one  met  all  day  long,  unless  one  counts 
the  platoons,  companies,  or  battalions  still  diligently  drilling 
under  the  leafless  apple-trees.  We  made  our  own  speed 
rules,  and  though  civilians  may  have  ground  their  teeth  with 
rage  as  we  tore  by  in  a  cloud  of  dust  or  a  shower  of  mud, 
outwardly  they  chiefly  ignored  our  presence — except  the 

68 


KNOCKING  ABOUT  THE  OCCUPIED  AREA 

girls,  the  poor,  and  the  children,  who  more  often  waved 
friendly  greetings.  Of  children  there  were  many  every- 
where, mobs  of  them  compared  with  France — chubby,  red- 
cheeked  little  boys,  often  in  cut-down  uniforms,  nearly 
always  wearing  the  red-banded,  German  fatigue  bonnet, 
far  less  artistic,  even  in  color,  than  the  bonnet  de  police  of 
French  boys,  and  accentuating  the  round,  close-cropped 
skulls  that  have  won  the  nation  the  sobriquet  of  "square- 
head." The  plump,  hearty,  straw-blond  little  girls  were 
almost  as  numerous  as  their  brothers;  every  town  surged 
with  them;  if  one  of  our  favorite  army  correspondents 
had  not  already  copyrighted  the  expression,  I  should  say 
that  the  villages  resembled  nothing  so  much  as  human 
hives  out  of  which  children  poured  like  disturbed  bees. 
Every  little  way  along  the  road  a  small  boy  thrust  out  a 
spiked  helmet  or  a  "Gott  mit  Uns"  belt-buckle  for  sale  as 
we  raced  past.  The  children  not  only  were  on  very  friendly 
terms  with  our  soldiers — all  children  are — but  they  got  on 
well  even  where  the  horizon  blue  of  the  poilu  took  the  place 
of  our  khaki. 

Farmers  were  back  at  work  in  their  fields  now,  most  of 
them  still  in  the  field  gray  of  the  trenches,  turned  into 
"civies"  by  some  simple  little  change.  Men  of  military 
age  seemed  far  more  plentiful  than  along  French  roads. 
How  clean  and  unscathed,  untouched  by  the  war,  it  all 
looked  in  contrast  to  poor,  mutilated,  devastated  France. 
Many  sturdy  draft-horses  were  still  seen,  escaped  by  some 
miracle  from  the  maw  of  war.  Goodly  dumps  of  American 
and  French  shells,  for  quick  use  should  the  Germans  sud- 
denly cease  to  cry  "Kamerad!"  flashed  by.  In  one  spot 
was  an  enormous  heap  of  Boche  munitions  waiting  for  our 
ordnance  section  to  find  some  safe  means  of  blowing  it  up. 
There  were  "Big  Bertha"  shells,  and  Zeppelin  bombs  among 
them,  of  particular  interest  to  those  of  us  who  had  never 
seen  them  before,  but  who  knew  only  too  well  how  it  feels 

69 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

to  have  them  drop  within  a  few  yards  of  us.  Every  little 
while  we  sped  past  peasant  men  and  women  who  were 
opening  long  straw-  and  earth-covered  mounds,  built  last 
autumn  under  other  conditions,  and  loading  wagons  with 
the  huge  coarse  species  of  turnip — rutabagas,  I  believe 
we  call  them — which  seemed  to  form  their  chief  crop  and 
food.  In  the  big  beech  forest  about  the  beautiful  Larchersee 
women  and  children,  and  a  few  men,  were  picking  up 
beechnuts  under  the  sepia-brown  carpet  of  last  year's 
leaves.  Their  vegetable  fat  makes  a  good  Ersatz  butter. 
Wild  ducks  still  winged  their  way  over  the  See,  or  rode  its 
choppy  waves,  undisturbed  by  the  rumors  of  food  scarcity. 
For  not  only  did  the  game  restrictions  of  the  old  regime 
still  hold;  the  population  was  forced  to  hand  over  even 
its  shotguns  when  we  came,  and  to  get  one  back  again  was  a 
long  and  properly  complicated  process. 

The  Americans  took  upon  themselves  the  repair  and 
widening  of  the  roads  which  our  heavy  trucks  had  begun  to 
pound  into  a  condition  resembling  those  of  France  in  the 
war  zone — at  German  expense  in  the  end,  of  course;  that 
was  particularly  where  the  shoe  pinched.  It  broke  the 
thrifty  Boche's  heart  to  see  these  extravagant  warriors 
from  overseas,  to  whom  two  years  of  financial  carte  blanche 
had  made  money  seem  mere  paper,  squandering  his  wealth, 
or  that  of  his  children,  without  so  much  as  an  if  you  please. 
The  labor  was  German,  under  the  supervision  of  American 
sergeants,  and  the  recruiting  of  it  absurdly  simple — to  the 
Americans.  An  order  to  the  burgomaster  informing  him 
succinctly,  "You  will  furnish  four  hundred  men  at  such  a 
place  to-morrow  morning  at  seven  for  road  labor;  wages 
eight  marks  a  day,"  covered  our  side  of  the  transaction. 
Where  and  how  the  burgomaster  found  the  laborers  was  no 
soup  out  of  our  plates.  We  often  got,  of  course,  the  poorest 
workmen;  men  too  young  or  too  old  for  our  purposes,  men 
either  already  broken  on  the  wheel  of  industry  or  not  yet 

70 


KNOCKING  ABOUT  THE  OCCUPIED  AREA 

broken  to  harness;  but  there  was  an  easy  "come-back" 
if  the  German  officials  played  that  game  too  frequently. 
Once  enrolled  to  labor  for  the  American  army,  a  man  was 
virtually  enlisted  for  the  duration  of  the  armistice — save  for 
suitable  reasons  or  lack  of  work.  Strikes,  so  epidemic 
"over  in  Germany,"  were  not  permitted  in  our  undertakings. 
A  keen  young  lieutenant  of  engineers  was  in  charge  of  road 
repairs  and  sawmills  in  a  certain  divisional  area.  One 
morning  his  sergeant  at  one  of  the  mills  called  him  on  the 
Signal  Corps  telephone  that  linked  all  the  Army  of  Occupa- 
tion together,  with  the  information  that  the  night  force 
had  struck. 

"Struck!"  cried  the  lieutenant,  aghast  at  the  audacity. 
"I'll  be  out  at  once!" 

Arrived  at  the  town  in  question,  he  dropped  in  on  the 
A.  P.  M.  to  request  that  a  squad  of  M.  P.'s  follow  him 
without  delay,  and  hurried  on  to  the  mill,  fingering  his  .44. 

"Order  that  night  force  to  fall  in  here  at  once!"  he  com- 
manded, indicating  an  imaginary  line  along  which  the 
offending  company  should  be  dressed. 

"Yes,  sir,"  saluted  the  sergeant,  and  disappeared  into 
the  building. 

The  lieutenant  waited,  nursing  his  rage.  A  small  boy, 
blue  with  cold,  edged  forward  to  see  what  was  going  on. 
Two  others,  a  bit  older,  thin  and  spindle-shanked,  their 
throats  and  chins  muffled  in  soiled  and  ragged  scarfs,  their 
gray  faces  testifying  to  long  malnutrition,  idled  into  view 
with  that  yellow-dog  curiosity  of  hookworm  victims.  But 
the  night  force  gave  no  evidence  of  existence.  At  length 
the  sergeant  reappeared. 

"Well,"  snapped  the  lieutenant,  "what  about  it?  Where 
is  that  night  shift?" 

"All  present,  sir,"  replied  the  sergeant,  pointing  at  the 
three  shivering  urchins.  ' '  Last  night  at  midnight  I  ordered 
them  to  start  a  new  pile  of  lumber,  and  the  next  I  see  of  them 

7* 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

they  was  crouching  around  the  boiler — it  was  a  cold  night, 
sir — and  when  I  ordered  them  back  to  work  they  said  they 
hadn't  had  anything  to  eat  for  two  days  but  some  war- 
bread.  You  know  there's  been  some  hold-up  in  the  pay 
vouchers  ..." 

A  small  banquet  at  the  neighboring  Gasihof  ended  that 
particular  strike  without  the  intervention  of  armed  force, 
though  there  were  occasionally  others  that  called  for  the 
shadow  of  it. 

In  taking  over  industries  of  this  sort  the  Americans 
adopted  the  practice  of  demanding  to  see  the  receipted 
bills  signed  by  the  German  military  authorities,  then 
required  the  same  prices.  Orders  were  issued  to  supply 
no  civilian  trade  without  written  permission  from  the 
Americans.  After  the  first  inevitable  punishments  for  not 
taking  the  soft-spoken  new-comers  at  their  word,  the  pro- 
prietors applied  the  rule  with  a  literalness  that  was  typically 
German.  A  humble  old  woman  knocked  timidly  at  the 
lieutenant's  office  door  one  day,  and  upon  being  admitted 
handed  the  clerk  a  long,  impressive  legal  paper.  When  it 
had  been  deciphered  it  proved  to  be  a  laboriously  penned 
request  for  permission  to  buy  lumber  at  the  neighboring 
sawmill.  In  it  Frau  Schmidt,  there  present,  certified  that 
she  had  taken  over  a  vacant  shop  for  the  purpose  of  open- 
ing a  shoe-store,  that  said  occupation  was  legal  and  of  use 
to  the  community,  that  there  was  a  hole  in  the  floor  of 
said  shop  which  it  was  to  the  advantage  of  the  health  and 
safety  of  the  community  to  have  mended,  wherefore  she 
respectfully  prayed  the  Heir  Leutnant  in  charge  of  the 
sawmills  of  the  region  to  authorize  her  to  buy  three  boards 
four  inches  wide  and  three  feet  long.  In  witness  of  the 
truth  of  the  above  assertions  of  Frau  Schmidt,  respectable 
and  duly  authorized  member  of  the  community,  the  burgo- 
master had  this  day  signed  his  name  and  caused  his  seal  to 
be  affixed. 

72 


KNOCKING  ABOUT  THE  OCCUPIED  AREA 

The  lieutenant  solemnly  approved  the  petition  and  passed 
it  on  "through  military  channels"  to  the  sergeant  at  the 
sawmill.  Any  tendency  of  das  Volk  to  take  our  occupancy 
with  fitting  seriousness  was  too  valuable  to  be  jeopardized 
by  typical  American  informality. 

A  few  days  later  came  another  episode  to  disprove  any 
rumors  that  the  American  heel  was  being  applied  with 
undue  harshness.  The  village  undertaker  came  in  to  state 
that  a  man  living  on  the  edge  of  town  was  expected  to  die, 
and  that  he  had  no  lumber  with  which  to  make  him  a  coffin. 
The  tender-hearted  lieutenant,  who  had  seen  many  com- 
rades done  to  death  in  tricky  ambuscades  on  the  western 
front,  issued  orders  that  the  undertaker  be  permitted  to 
purchase  materials  for  a  half-dozen  caskets,  and  as  the  peti- 
tioner bowed  his  guttural  thanks  he  assured  him:  "You  are 
entirely  welcome.  Whenever  you  need  any  more  lumber 
for  a  similar  purpose  do  not  hesitate  to  call  on  me.  I  hope 
you  will  come  early  and  often." 

The  Boche  gazed  at  the  speaker  with  the  glass-eyed 
expressionlessness  peculiar  to  his  race,  bowed  his  thanks 
again,  and  departed.  Whether  or  not  he  "got  the  idea" 
is  not  certain.  My  latest  letter  from  the  lieutenant  con- 
tains the  postscript,  "I  also  had  the  satisfaction  of  granting 
another  request  for  lumber  for  six  coffins." 

They  were  singing  a  familiar  old  song  with  new  words 
during  my  last  weeks  in  Coblenz,  the  chorus  beginning 
"The  Rhine,  the  Rhine,  the  Yankee  Rhine."  For  many 
miles  up  and  down  the  historic  stream  it  seemed  so  in- 
deed. I  have  been  in  many  foreign  ports  in  my  day,  and 
in  none  of  them  have  I  seen  the  American  flag  so  much 
in  evidence  as  at  the  junction  of  the  Moselle  and  "Father 
Rhine."  The  excursion  steamers  —  those  same  side- 
wheelers  on  which  you  rode  that  summer  you  turned 
tourist,  on  which  you  ate  red  cabbage  at  a  table 
hemmed  in  by  paunchy,  gross  Germans  who  rolled  their 

73 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

sentimental  eyes  as  the  famous  cliff  roused  in  them  a 
lusty  attempt  to  sing  of  the  Lorelei  with  her  golden 
hair — carried  the  Stars  and  Stripes  at  their  stern  now. 
They  were  still  manned  by  their  German  crews;  a 
resplendent  "square-head"  officer  still  majestically  paced 
the  bridge.  But  they  were  in  command  of  American 
Marines,  "snappy,"  keen-eyed  young  fellows  who  had 
fought  their  way  overland — how  fiercely  the  Boche  himself 
knows  only  too  well — till  they  came  to  water  again,  like  the 
amphibians  that  they  are.  A  "leatherneck"  at  the  wheel, 
a  khaki-clad  band  playing  airs  the  Rhine  cliffs  never  echoed 
back  in  former  years,  a  compact  mass  of  happy  Yanks 
packing  every  corner,  they  plow  placidly  up  and  down  the 
stream  which  so  many  of  their  passengers  never  dreamed 
of  seeing  outside  their  school-books,  dipping  their  flags 
to  one  another  as  they  pass,  a  rubber-lunged  "Y"  man 
pouring  out  megaphoned  tales  and  legends  as  each  "castled 
crag,"  flying  the  Stars  and  Stripes  or  the  Tricolor  now, 
loomed  into  view,  rarely  if  ever  forgetting  to  add  that 
unsuspected  little  touch  of  "propaganda,"  "Burned  by 
the  French  in  1689."  Baedeker  himself  never  aspired 
to  see  his  land  so  crowded  with  tourists  and  sightseers  as  it 
was  in  the  spring  of  1919.  Now  and  then  a  shipload  of 
those  poilus  who  waved  to  us  from  the  shore  as  we  danced 
and  sang  and  megaphoned  our  way  up  through  their  terri- 
tory came  down  past  Coblenz,  their  massed  horizon  blue 
so  much  more  tangible  than  our  drab  brown,  their  band 
playing  quite  other  tunes  than  ours,  the  doughboys  ashore 
shrilling  an  occasional  greeting  to  what  they  half  affection- 
ately, half  disdainfully  call  "the  poor  Frogs."  There  was 
a  somewhat  different  atmosphere  aboard  these  horizon-blue 
excursion  boats  than  on  our  own;  they  seemed  to  get  so 
much  more  satisfaction,  a  contentment  almost  too  deep  for 
words,  out  of  the  sight  of  the  sale  Boche  in  manacles. 
Boatloads  of  "Tommies"  came  up  to  look  us  over  now 

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KNOCKING  ABOUT  THE  OCCUPIED  AREA 

and  then,  too,  a  bit  disdainful,  as  is  their  nature,  but  friendly, 
in  their  stiff  way,  for  all  that,  their  columns  of  caps  punctu- 
ated here  and  there  by  the  cocked  hat  of  the  saucy  "  Aussies  " 
and  the  red-banded  head-gear  of  those  other  un-British 
Britons  from  the  antipodes  who  look  at  first  glance  so 
startlingly  like  our  own  M.  P.'s.  Once  we  were  even  favored 
with  a  call  by  the  sea-dogs  whose  vigil  made  this  new 
Watch  on  the  Rhine  possible;  five  "snappy"  little  sub- 
marine-chasers, that  had  wormed  their  way  up  through 
the  canals  and  rivers  of  France,  anchored  down  beneath 
the  gigantic  monument  at  the  mouth  of  the  Moselle.  You 
have  three  guesses  as  to  whether  or  not  the  Germans  looked 
at  them  with  interest. 

It  was  my  good  fortune  to  be  able  to  make  two  excursions 
into  unoccupied  Germany  while  stationed  on  the  Rhine. 
Those  who  fancy  the  sight  of  an  American  uniform  beyond 
our  lines  was  like  shaking  a  red  tablecloth  in  a  Spanish 
bull-ring  may  be  surprised  to  know  that  these  little  jaunts 
were  by  no  means  rare.  We  went  not  merely  in  full  uni- 
form, quite  without  camouflage,  but  in  army  automobiles 
and  wholly  unarmed — and  we  came  back  in  a  condition 
which  a  cockney  would  pronounce  in  the  same  way.  The 
first  spin  was  to  Dusseldorf,  between  two  of  her  Sparticist 
flurries.  Not  far  above  Bonn  the  landscape  changed  sud- 
denly from  American  to  British  khaki,  with  a  boundary  post 
in  charge  of  a  circumspect  English  sergeant  between.  Be- 
low Cologne,  with  her  swarming  "Tommies"  and  her  plump 
and  comely  girl  street-car  conductors  and  "motormen" 
in  their  green-banded  Boche  caps,  we  passed  scores  of  the 
apple-cheeked  boy  recruits  England  was  sending  us  to  take 
the  place  of  those  who  were  "fed  up  with  it,"  and  who 
gazed  about  them  with  that  wide-eyed  interest  in  every  little 
detail  of  this  strange  new  land  which  the  traveler  would 
fain  keep  to  the  end  of  his  days.  It  seemed  natural  to  find 
the  British  here;  one  had  grown  to  associate  them  with  the 

75 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

flat,  low  portions  of  the  country.  Far  down  the  river  a 
French  post  stopped  us,  but  the  sentry  was  so  interested 
in  posing  before  my  kodak  that  he  forgot  to  mention  passes, 
and  we  were  soon  speeding  on  through  a  narrow  horizon- 
blue  belt.  The  Belgians,  who  turned  the  scene  to  brown 
again  not  far  beyond,  were  even  less  exacting  than  the 
poilus.  At  the  farther  end  of  the  great  bridge  over  the 
Rhine  between  Neuss  and  Diisseldorf  they  had  a  score  of 
sentries  posted  behind  barbed-wire  entanglements,  touch- 
ing the  very  edge  of  the  unoccupied  city.  But  our  only 
formality  in  passing  them  was  to  shout  over  our  shoulders, 
"Armte  amtricaine!"  that  open  sesame  of  western  Europe 
for  nearly  two  years. 

Somewhat  to  our  disappointment  the  atmosphere  of 
Dusseldorf  was  very  little  different  from  that  of  an  occupied 
city.  The  ubiquitous  small  boy  surrounded  us  more  densely 
wherever  our  car  halted;  the  thronged  streets  stared  at  us 
somewhat  more  searchingly,  but  there  was  little  other 
change  in  attitude  to  be  noted.  Those  we  asked  for  direc- 
tions gave  us  the  same  elaborate  courtesy  and  annoying 
assistance;  the  shops  we  entered  served  us  as  alertly 
and  at  as  reasonable  prices;  the  manufacturer  we  called  on 
listened  to  our  wants  as  respectfully  as  any  of  his  fellows 
in  the  occupied  zone — and  was  quite  as  willing  to  open  a 
credit  with  the  American  army.  The  motto  everywhere 
seemed  to  be  "Business  as  usual."  There  was  next  to 
nothing  to  suggest  a  state  of  war  or  siege  anywhere  within 
a  thousand  miles  of  us — nothing,  at  least,  except  a  few 
gaunt  youths  of  the  '19  class  who  guarded  railway  viaducts 
and  government  buildings,  still  wearing  their  full  trench 
equipment,  including — strange  to  believe! — their  camou- 
flaged iron  hats!  Postal  clerks  of  the  S.  O.  S.  supposed,  of 
course,  that  all  this  brand  of  head-gear  had  long  since  crossed 
the  Atlantic.  Humanity  certainly  is  quick  to  recuperate. 
Here,  on  the  edge  of  the  greatest  war  in  history,  with  the 

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KNOCKING  ABOUT  THE  OCCUPIED  AREA 

victorious  enemy  at  the  very  end  of  the  next  street,  with  red 
revolution  hovering  in  the  air,  life  went  on  its  even  way; 
merchants  sold  their  wares;  street-cars  carried  their  lolling 
passengers;  children  homeward  bound  from  school  with 
their  books  in  the  hairy  cowhide  knapsacks  we  had  so  often 
seen  doing  other  service  at  the  front  chattered  and  laughed 
and  played  their  wayside  games. 

The  return  to  Coblenz  was  even  more  informal  than  the 
down-stream  trip.  Belgian,  French,  and  British  guards 
waved  to  us  to  pass  as  we  approached ;  only  our  own  frontier 
guard  halted  us,  and  from  then  on  our  right  arms  grew 
weary  with  returning  the  salutes  that  were  snapped  at  us  in 
constant,  unfailing  succession. 

The  second  trip  was  a  trifle  more  exciting,  partly  because 
we  had  no  permission  to  carry  it  as  far  as  we  did — playing 
hooky,  which  in  the  army  is  pronounced  "A.  W.  O.  L." 
keeps  its  zest  all  through  life — partly  because  we  never 
knew  at  what  moment  the  war-battered  "Dodge"  would 
fall  to  bits  beneath  us,  like  the  old  one-horse  shay,  and  leave 
us  to  struggle  back  to  our  billets  as  best  we  could.  It  was 
a  cold  but  pleasant  Sunday.  Up  the  Rhine  to  Mainz 
nothing  broke  the  rhythm  of  our  still  robust  motor  except 
the  M.  P.  at  the  old  stone  arch  that  separated  the  American 
from  the  broad  horizon-blue  strip — the  two  journeys  laid 
end  to  end  made  one  realize  what  an  enormous  chunk  of 
Germany  the  armistice  gave  the  Allies.  We  halted,  of 
course,  at  the  cathedral  of  the  French  headquarters  to  see 
the  "Grablegung  Christi  (1492),"  as  every  one  should, 
listened  awhile  to  the  whine  of  the  pessimistic  old  sexton 
with  his,  "Oh,  such  another  war  will  come  again  in  twenty 
years  or  so;  humanity  is  like  that,"  and  sped  on  along  a 
splendid  highway  to  Wiesbaden.  The  French  were  making 
the  most  of  their  stay  in  this  garden  spot.  They  let  no 
non-fraternizing  orders  interfere  with  enjoying  the  best 
the  Kurhaus  restaurant  or  cellars,  the  magnificent,  over- 

77 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

ornate  opera-house,  the  beautiful  park,  even  the  culture  of 
the  better  class  of  German  visitors,  afforded. 

Our  pass  read  Wiesbaden  and  return,  but  that  would 
have  made  a  tame  day  of  it.  Rejuvenated  of  heart,  if 
saddened  of  pocketbook,  by  the  Kurhaus  luncheon,  we  rat- 
tled swiftly  on  to  the  eastward.  In  due  time  we  began  to 
pass  French  outposts,  indifferent  to  our  passage  at  first, 
then  growing  more  and  more  inquisitive,  until  there  came 
one  which  would  not  be  put  off  with  a  flip  of  the  hand  and  a 
shouted  "Armee  americaine,"  but  brought  us  to  an  abrupt 
stop  with  a  long,  slim  bayonet  that  came  perilously  near 
disrupting  the  even  purr  of  our  still  sturdy  motor.  The 
crucial  moment  had  come.  If  the  French  guard  could  read 
our  pass  we  were  due  to  turn  back  forthwith,  chagrined  and 
crestfallen.  But  none  of  us  had  ever  heard  of  a  French 
guard  who  could  read  an  American  pass,  and  we  presented 
it  with  that  lofty  assurance  which  only  those  have  not 
learned  who  wantonly  wasted  their  time  with  the  A.  E.  F. 
in  France.  The  sentry  received  the  pass  dubiously,  as 
we  expected  him  to;  he  looked  it  over  on  both  sides  with  an 
inwardly  puzzled  but  an  outwardly  wise  air,  as  we  knew  he 
would;  he  called  his  corporal,  as  we  had  foreseen;  the  cor- 
poral looked  at  the  pass  with  the  pretended  wisdom  of  all 
his  kind,  handed  it  back  with  a  courteous  "Bien,  messieurs," 
as  we  were  certain  he  would,  and  we  sped  on ' '  into  Germany. ' ' 

It  was  a  bland  and  sunny  afternoon.  The  suburban 
villages  of  Frankfurt  were  waddling  about  in  their  Sunday 
best,  the  city  itself  was  promenading  its  less  dowdy  holiday 
attire  along  the  wide,  well-swept  streets.  We  brought  up 
at  a  square  overlooked  by  a  superbly  proportioned  bronze 
gentleman  who  had  lost  every  stitch  of  his  attire  except 
his  "tin  hat,"  where  we  left  the  car  and  mingled  with 
the  throng.  Passers-by  directed  us  courteously  enough  to 
the  "Goethehaus."  Its  door-bell  handle  dangled  loosely, 
as  it  had  fifteen  years  before,  but  a  sign  informed  us  that  the 

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KNOCKING  ABOUT  THE  OCCUPIED  AREA 

place  was  closed  on  Sunday  afternoons.  The  scattered 
crowd  that  had  paused  to  gaze  at  our  strange  uniforms 
told  us  to  come  next  day,  or  any  other  time  than  Sunday 
afternoon,  and  we  should  be  admitted  at  once.  We  did 
not  take  the  trouble  to  explain  how  difficult  it  would  be  for 
us  to  come  another  day.  Instead,  we  strolled  nonchalantly 
through  the  thickening  throng  and  fell  in  with  the  stream  of 
promenaders  along  the  wide  main  street.  There  were  four 
of  us — Colonel — but  never  mind  the  name,  for  this  one 
happened  to  be  a  perfectly  good  colonel,  and  he  may  still 
be  in  the  army — and  three  other  officers.  We — or,  more 
exactly,  our  uniforms — attracted  a  decided  attention. 
The  majority  stared  at  us  vacantly  or  with  puzzled  airs; 
now  and  then  we  saw  some  man  of  military  age  whisper 
our  identity  to  his  companion.  No  one  gave  any  indica- 
tion of  a  desire  to  molest  us.  Yet  somehow  the  atmosphere 
about  us  was  considerably  more  tense  than  in  Dusseldorf. 
Twice  we  heard  a  "verdammte"  behind  us,  but  as  one  of  them 
was  followed  by  the  word  "Engldnder"  it  may  have  been 
nothing  worse  than  a  case  of  mistaken  identity.  Still 
there  was  something  in  the  air  that  whispered  we  had 
best  not  prolong  our  call  beyond  the  dictates  of  good  taste. 

The  shop-windows  were  fully  as  well  stocked  as  those  of 
Cologne  or  Coblenz;  the  strollers,  on  the  whole,  well  dressed. 
Their  faces,  in  the  expert  opinion  of  the  colonel,  showed 
no  more  signs  of  malnutrition  than  the  average  crowd 
of  any  large  city.  Here  and  there  we  passed  a  sturdy, 
stern-faced  sailor,  a  heavy  Browning  or  Luger  at  his  side, 
reminding  us  that  these  men  of  the  sea — or  of  the  Kiel 
Canal — had  taken  over  the  police  duties  in  many  centers. 
Otherwise  nothing  met  the  eye  or  ear  that  one  would  not 
have  seen  in  Frankfurt  in  days  of  peace. 

As  we  were  retracing  our  steps,  one  of  my  companions 
stepped  across  the  street  to  ask  directions  to  a  fashionable 
afternoon-tea  house.  He  returned  a  moment  later  beside 

79 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

a  gigantic,  heavily  armed  soldier-policeman.  The  fellow 
had  demanded  to  see  our  passes,  our  permission  to  visit 
Frankfurt.  Now,  in  the  words  of  the  American  soldier, 
we  had  no  more  permission  to  visit  Frankfurt  "than  a 
rabbit."  But  this  was  the  last  place  in  the  world  to  betray 
that  fact.  The  pass  to  Wiesbaden  and  return  I  had  left 
in  the  car.  I  showed  great  eagerness  to  take  the  policeman 
to  see  it.  He  gave  evidence  of  a  willingness  to  accept  the 
invitation.  We  were  on  the  point  of  starting  when  a  more 
dapper  young  soldier-guard,  a  sergeant,  appeared.  The 
giant  clicked  his  heels  sharply  and  fell  into  the  background. 
The  sergeant  spoke  perfect  English,  with  a  strong  British 
accent.  He  regretted  the  annoyance  of  troubling  us,  but — 
had  we  a  pass?  I  showed  renewed  eagerness  to  conduct 
him  to  the  car  and  show  it. 

"Not  at  all.  Not  at  all,"  he  apologized.  "As  long  as 
you  have  a  pass  it's  quite  all  right,  you  know,  quite.  Ah, 
and  you  have  an  automobile?  Yes,  yes,  quite,  the  square 
where  the  bronze  Hermes  is.  It's  quite  all  right,  I  assure 
you.  You  will  pardon  us  for  troubling  you?  The  Astoria? 
Ah,  it  is  rather  a  jaunt,  you  know.  But  here  is  the  Cafe 
Bauer,  right  in  front  of  you.  You'll  find  their  cakes  quite 
as  good,  and.  their  music  is  topping,  you  know.  Not  at  all. 
Not  at  all.  It's  quite  all  right,  really.  So  sorry  to  have 
troubled  you,  you  know.  Good  day,  sir." 

It  was  with  difficulty  that  we  found  seats  in  the  crowded 
cafe",  large  as  it  was.  A  throng  of  men  and  women,  some- 
what less  buoyant  than  similar  gatherings  in  Paris,  was 
sipping  beer  and  wine  at  the  marble-topped  tables.  A 
large  orchestra  played  rather  well  in  a  corner.  Seidels  of 
good  beer  cost  us  less  than  they  would  have  in  New  York 
two  years  before.  The  bourgeois  gathering  looked  at 
us  rather  fixedly,  a  bit  languidly.  I  started  to  light  a 
cigar,  but  could  not  find  my  matches.  A  well-dressed  man 
of  middle  age  at  the  next  table  leaned  over  and  lighted  it 

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KNOCKING  ABOUT  THE  OCCUPIED  AREA 

for  me.  Two  youthful  students  in  their  gay-colored  caps 
grinned  at  us  rather  flippantly.  A  waiter  hovered  about 
us,  bowing  low  and  smirking  a  bit  fatuously  whenever  we 
spoke  to  him.  There  was  no  outward  evidence  to  show 
that  we  were  among  enemies.  Still  there  was  no  wisdom 
in  playing  too  long  with  fire,  once  the  initial  pleasure  of 
the  game  had  worn  off.  It  would  have  been  hard  to  explain 
to  our  own  people  how  we  came  to  be  in  Frankfurt,  even 
if  nothing  worse  came  of  another  demand  for  our  passes. 
Uncle  Sam  would  never  suffer  for  the  loss  of  that  "Dodge," 
but  he  would  be  quite  apt  to  show  extensive  inquisitiveness 
to  know  who  lost  it.  The  late  afternoon  promenade  at  the 
Kurhaus  back  in  Wiesbaden  was  said  to  be  very  interesting. 
We  paid  our  reckoning,  tipped  our  tip,  and  wandered 
casually  back  to  the  square  graced  by  the  bronze  young  man 
whose  equipment  had  gone  astray.  To  say  that  we  were 
surprised  to  find  the  car  waiting  where  we  had  left  it,  the 
doughboy-chauffeur  dozing  in  his  seat,  would  be  putting 
it  too  strongly.  But  we  were  relieved. 

The  Kurhaus  promenade  was  not  what  it  was  "cracked  up 
to  be,"  at  least  not  that  afternoon.  But  we  may  have  been 
somewhat  late.  The  opera,  beginning  at  six,  was  excellent, 
lacking  something  of  the  lightness  of  the  same  performance 
in  Paris,  but  outdoing  it  in  some  details,  chiefly  in  its 
mechanical  effects.  One  looked  in  vain  for  any  suggestion 
of  under-nourishment  in  the  throng  of  buxom,  "corn-fed" 
women  and  stodgy  men  who  crowded  the  house  and  the 
top-heavily  decorated  foyer  during  the  entr'actes.  French- 
men in  uniform,  from  generals  to  poilus,  gave  color  to  the 
rather  somber  audience  and  made  no  bones  of  "fraterniz- 
ing" with  the  civilians — particularly  if  she  chanced  to  be 
beautiful,  which  was  seldom  the  case.  American  officers 
were  numerous;  there  were  Englishmen,  "Anzacs,"  Bel- 
gians, Italians,  and  a  Serb  or  two.  The  after-theater 
dinner  at  the  Kurhaus  was  sumptuous,  except  in  one  detail; 

81 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

neither  bribery  nor  pleading  could  win  us  the  tiniest  slice 
of  the  black  war-bread  that  was  stintingly  served  to  those 
with  bread-tickets.  Otherwise  "wine,  women,  and  song" 
were  as  much  in  evidence  as  if  war  had  never  come  to  trouble 
the  worldly  pleasures  of  Wiesbaden. 

We  left  after  ten,  of  a  black  night.  Our  return  trip,  by 
direct  route,  took  us  through  a  strip  of  neutral  territory. 
We  were  startled  some  eight  or  ten  times  by  a  stentorian 
"Halte!"  at  improvised  wooden  barriers,  in  lonely  places, 
by  soldiers  in  French  uniforms  who  were  not  Frenchmen, 
and  who  could  neither  speak  any  tongue  we  could  muster 
nor  read  our  pass.  They  were  French  colonials,  many 
of  them  blacker  than  the  night  in  which  they  kept  their 
shivering  vigil.  Most  of  them  delayed  us  a  matter  of 
several  minutes;  all  of  them  carried  aside  their  clumsy 
barriers  and  let  us  pass  at  last  with  bad  grace.  Nearing 
Coblenz,  we  were  halted  twice  by  our  own  soldiers,  stationed 
in  pairs  beside  their  blazing  fires,  and  at  three  in  the  morning 
we  scattered  to  our  billets. 

Two  cartoons  always  come  to  mind  when  I  look  back  on 
those  months  with  the  American  Watch  on  the  Rhine. 
One  is  French.  It  shows  two  poilus  sitting  on  the  bank  of 
the  famous  stream,  the  one  languidly  fishing,  with  that 
placid  indifference  of  the  French  fisherman  as  to  whether 
or  not  he  ever  catches  anything;  the  other  stretched  at 
three-fourths  length  against  a  wall  and  yawning  with 
ennui  as  he  remarks,  "And  they  call  this  the  Army  of 
Occupation!"  The  other  drawing  is  American.  It  shows 
Pershing  in  1950.  He  is  bald,  with  a  snowy  beard  reaching 
to  his  still  soldierly  waist,  while  on  his  lap  he  holds  a  grand- 
son to  whom  he  has  been  telling  stories  of  his  great  years. 
Suddenly,  as  the  erstwhile  commander  of  the  A.  E.  F.  is 
about  to  doze  off  into  his  afternoon  nap,  the  grandson  points 
a  finger  at  the  map,  demanding,  "And  what  is  that  red  spot 
in  the  center  of  Europe,  grandpa?"  With  one  brief  glance 

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KNOCKING  ABOUT  THE  OCCUPIED  AREA 

the  old  general  springs  to  his  feet,  crying,  "Great  Caesar! 
I  forgot  to  relieve  the  Army  of  Occupation!" 

Those  two  squibs  are  more  than  mere  jokes;  they  sum  up 
the  point  of  view  of  the  soldiers  on  the  Rhine.  The  French, 
and  like  them  the  British  and  Belgians,  only  too  glad  that 
the  struggle  that  had  worn  into  their  very  souls  was  ended 
at  last,  had  settled  down  to  all  the  comfort  and  leisure 
consistent  with  doing  their  full  duty  as  guardians  of  the 
strip  intrusted  to  them.  The  Americans,  like  a  team  arriv- 
ing at  a  baseball  tournament  so  late  that  they  could  play 
only  the  last  three  innings,  had  gone  out  on  the  field  to 
bat  up  flies  and  play  a  practice  game  to  take  some  of  the 
sting  out  of  the  disappointment  of  finding  the  contest  over 
before  they  could  make  better  use  of  their  long  and  arduous 
training.  It  was  this  species  of  military  oakum-picking 
that  was  the  second  grievance  of  the  American  soldier  on  the 
Rhine;  the  first  was  the  uncertainty  that  surrounded  his 
return  to  the  land  of  his  birth.  While  the  neighboring 
armies  were  walking  the  necessary  posts  and  sleeping  many 
and  long  naps,  our  soldiers  had  scarcely  found  time  to  wash 
the  feet  that  had  carried  them  from  the  trenches  to  the 
Rhine,  much  less  cure  them  of  their  blisters,  when  orders 
swept  over  the  Army  of  Occupation  calling  for  long  hours 
of  intensive  training  six  days  a  week.  It  is  said  that  an 
English  general  on  an  inspection  tour  of  our  area  watched 
this  mile  after  mile  of  frenzied  trench-digging,  of  fake 
bombing  -  parties,  of  sham  battles  the  barrages  of  which 
still  made  the  earth  tremble  for  a  hundred  miles  around, 
of  never-ending  "Squads  east  and  squads  west,"  without  a 
word,  until  he  came  to  the  end  of  the  day  and  of  his  review. 
Then  he  remarked: 

"Astounding!  Extraordinary,  all  this,  upon  my  word! 
You  chaps  certainly  have  the  vim  of  youth.  But ...  ah  ... 
er  .  .  .  if  you  don't  mind  telling  me,  just  what  are  you 
planning  to  do?  Fight  your  way  back  through  France?" 
7  83 


GETTING   NEUTRALIZED 

'"THERE  is  an  aged  saying  to  the  effect  that  the  longest 
•*•  way  round  is  often  the  shortest  way  home.  It  applies 
to  many  of  the  crossroads  of  life.  Toward  the  end  of  March 
I  found  myself  facing  such  a  fork  in  my  own  particular 
footpath.  My  "duties"  with  the  Army  of  Occupation 
had  slowed  down  to  a  point  where  I  could  only  write  the 
word  between  quotation-marks  and  speak  it  with  a  throaty 
laugh.  I  suggested  that  I  be  sent  on  a  walking  trip  through 
unoccupied  Germany,  whence  our  information  was  not  so 
meager  as  contradictory.  It  would  have  been  so  simple 
to  have  dropped  into  the  inconspicuous  garb  of  a  civilian 
right  there  in  Coblenz,  and  to  have  slipped  noiselessly 
over  the  outer  arc  of  our  bridgehead.  Eventually,  I  believe, 
the  army  would  have  adopted  the  suggestion.  There  were 
times  when  it  showed  an  almost  human  interest  in  the  proj- 
ect. But  I  am  of  an  intensely  selfish,  self -centered  dis- 
position; I  wanted  to  try  the  adventure  myself,  personally. 
Besides,  there  was  no  certainty  that  my  grandson  would 
care  for  that  species  of  sport.  He  might  be  of  quite  the 
opposite  temperament — a  solid,  respectable,  church-going, 
respected  citizen,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing,  you  know. 
Furthermore,  I  had  not  yet  taken  the  first  preliminary, 
indispensable  step  toward  acquiring  a  grandson.  Where- 
fore, in  a  lucid  moment,  I  recalled  the  moth-eaten  adage 
above  plagiarized,  and  concluded  that  the  easiest  way 

84 


GETTING  NEUTRALIZED 

to  get  "over  into  Germany"  was  to  turn  my  back  on  the 
Rhine  and  return  to  France. 

It  may  be  that  my  offer  to  relieve  Uncle  Sam  from  the 
burden  of  my  support  caught  the  authorities  napping. 
At  any  rate,  the  application  sailed  serenely  over  the  reef 
on  which  I  fully  expected  to  see  it  hopelessly  shipwrecked, 
and  a  week  later  I  was  speeding  toward  that  village  in  cen- 
tral France  known  to  the  A.  E.  F.  as  the  "canning  factory." 

Relieved  for  the  first  time  in  twenty-three  months  of 
the  necessity  of  awaiting  authority  for  my  goings  and  com- 
ings, I  returned  a  fortnight  later  to  Coblenz.  It  would 
not  have  been  difficult  to  sneak  directly  over  our  line 
into  unoccupied  territory.  I  knew  more  than  one  forest- 
hidden  loophole  in  it.  But  that  would  scarcely  have  been 
fair  to  my  erstwhile  colonel — and  with  all  his  faults  the 
colonel  had  been  rather  decent.  Besides,  while  that  would 
have  been  the  more  romantic  thing,  it  might  not  have  led 
to  as  long  and  unhampered  a  stay  in  Germany  as  a  more 
orderly  and  gentlemanly  entrance. 

Of  the  two  neutralizing  points,  that  to  the  north  was  re- 
puted the  more  promising.  The  express  to  Cologne  sped 
across  white  fields  that  belied  the  calendar  and  gave  the 
heavily  blossomed  cherry-  and  apple-trees  the  appearance 
of  being  laden  with  clinging  snow.  The  more  brassy 
British  khaki  took  the  place  of  our  own,  the  compartment 
groups  changed  gradually  from  American  to  English  officers. 
The  latter  were  very  young,  for  the  most  part,  and  one 
scarcely  needed  to  listen  to  their  almost  childish  prattle 
of  their  work  and  things  warlike  to  know  that  they  were 
not  veterans.  Long  freight-trains  crowded  with  still 
younger  Britishers,  exuding  the  extreme  callowness  of  the 
untraveled  insular  youth,  rattled  into  town  with  us  from  a 
more  northern  direction,  happy  to  take  the  place  of  the 
grim  and  grizzled  warriors  that  were  being  demobilized. 
In  the  outskirts  of  the  city  Germans  of  both  sexes  and  all 

85 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

ages  were  placidly  yet  diligently  toiling  in  their  little  garden 
patches  into  the  twilight  of  the  long  spring  day. 

The  British,  rating  me  a  correspondent,  billeted  me  in  a 
once  proud  hotel  in  the  shadow  of  the  great  cathedral. 
In  the  scurry  of  pursuing  passport  and  visees  in  Paris  I 
had  found  no  time  to  change  my  garb  to  the  kind  that 
flaps  about  the  ankles.  In  consequence  my  evening  stroll 
was  several  times  broken  by  as  many  of  England's  boyish 
new  guardsmen,  their  bayonets  overtopping  them  by 
several  inches  in  some  cases,  who  pounded  their  rifle- 
butts  on  the  pavement  in  salute  and  stage-whispered  a  bit 
tremulously : 

"Officers  is  not  to  walk  about  too  much  by  theirselves, 
sir." 

My  query  at  the  first  warning  had  been  answered  with  a: 
"Three  of  them  was  badly  cut  up  last  night,  sir." 
There  were  no  outward  signs  of  any  such  serious  enmity, 
however;  on  the  contrary,   the  populace  seemed  almost 
friendly,  and  at  the  officers'  club  guests  were  checking  their 
side-arms  with  the  German  doorman. 

The  tall  and  hearty  Irish  guardsman  in  charge  of  British 
Rhine  traffic  readily  granted  my  request  to  go  down  the 
river  in  one  of  the  daily  steamers  carrying  troops  back  to 
"Blighty"  for  demobilization.  That  day's  boat  floundered 
under  the  simple  little  name  of  Ernst  Ludwig  Gross  Herzog 
von  Hessen  und  bei  Rhein!  I  believe  the  new  owners 
called  it  Louie.  A  score  of  German  girls  came  down 
to  the  wharf  to  wave  the  departing  "Tommies"  farewell. 
All  day  we  passed  long  strings  of  barges  flying  the  triangular 
flag  of  the  Food  Commission,  bearing  supplies  for  the  Army 
of  Occupation  and  the  civilian  population  of  the  occupied 
region.  The  time  was  but  a  few  weeks  off  when  the  arteries 
of  the  Third  Army  flowing  through  France  would  be  entirely 
cut  off.  The  food  on  board  the  Louie  was  not  unlike  our 
own  army  ration;  the  bunks  supplied  the  officers  were  of 

86 


GETTING  NEUTRALIZED 

a  sort  that  would  have  moved  our  own  more  exacting 
wearers  of  the  "Sam  Browne"  to  start  a  Congressional 
investigation.  The  most  noticeable  differences  between  this 
Blighty-bound  multitude  and  our  own  doughboys  were  three 
in  number — their  lack  of  inventiveness  in  amusing  them- 
selves, their  lower  attitude  toward  women,  and  the  utter 
lack  of  care  of  the  teeth,  conspicuous  even  among  the  offi- 
cers. We  should  have  been  hard  put  to  it,  however,  to 
find  a  higher  type  than  the  youthful  captains  and  lieutenants 
in  charge  of  the  steamer. 

At  five  we  halted  for  the  night  beside  several  huge  barges 
anchored  well  out  in  the  stream,  their  holds  filled  with  very- 
passable  bunks — as  soldiering  goes.  While  the  Tommies, 
pack-laden,  clambered  down  the  half-dozen  narrow  hatches 
to  their  light  quarters,  I  dropped  in  on  the  families  that 
dwelt  in  the  stern  of  each.  Those  who  have  never  paid  a 
similar  call  might  be  surprised  to  find  what  homelike  com- 
fort reigns  in  these  floating  residences.  Outwardly  the 
barges  are  of  the  plainest  and  roughest,  coal-carriers  for 
the  most  part,  with  all  the  smudge  and  discomfort  of  such 
occupation.  As  the  lower  house  door  at  the  rear  opens,  his 
eyes  are  prepared  to  behold  something  about  as  inviting 
as  the  forecastle  of  a  windjammer.  Instead  they  are  all 
but  dazzled  by  the  immaculate,  housewifely  cleanliness, 
the  orderly  comfort  of  the  interior.  The  Rhine-plying 
dwelling  is  a  close  replica  of  a  "lower  middle-class"  residence 
ashore — a  half-dozen  rooms,  carpeted,  lace-curtained,  the 
walls  decorated  with  family  portraits,  elaborate-framed 
mottoes  and  over-colored  statuettes  of  the  Catholic  faith, 
a  great  square  bed  of  inviting  furnishings  in  the  parental 
room,  smaller  though  no  less  attractive  ones  in  the  other 
sleeping-chambers,  easy-chairs,  the  latest  thing  in  kitchen 
ranges,  large  lamps  that  are  veritable  chandeliers  suspended 
from  the  ceiling — nothing  was  missing,  down  to  the  family 
cat  and  canary. 

8? 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

It  was  noticeable  that  though  the  barges  had  been  com- 
mandeered by  their  army  and  they  never  lost  sight  of  the 
fact  that  their  owners  were  "the  enemy,"  the  English 
officers  were  meticulously  courteous  in  requesting  permis- 
sion to  enter  the  family  cabins.  Your  Britisher  never  for- 
gets that  a  man's  home  is  his  castle.  One  could  not  but 
wonder  just  what  the  attitude  of  a  German  officer  would 
have  been  under  reversed  conditions,  for  the  same  motto 
is  far  less  deeply  ingrained  in  the  Teuton  character.  The 
barge  nearest  the  steamer  was  occupied  by  a  family  with 
five  children,  the  oldest  aged  fourteen,  all  born  on  board, 
at  as  many  points  of  the  vessel's  constant  going  and  coming 
between  Rotterdam  and  Mannheim.  Two  of  them  were  at 
school  in  the  town  in  which  the  family  was  registered  as 
residents,  where  the  parental  marriage  was  on  record, 
where  the  father  reported  when  the  order  of  mobilization 
called  him  to  arms.  The  oldest  had  already  been  entered  as 
"crew,"  and  was  preparing  to  follow  in  his  father's  foot- 
steps— if  the  expression  be  allowed  under  the  circumstances. 

When  they  had  arranged  themselves  for  the  night,  the 
"Tommies"  returned  on  board  the  steamer  for  a  two-hour 
entertainment  of  such  caliber  as  could  be  aroused  from  their 
own  midst.  There  were  several  professional  barn-storming 
vaudeville  performers  among  them,  rather  out  of  practice 
from  their  long  trench  vigils,  but  willing  enough  to  offer 
such  talents  as  they  still  possessed.  Nor  were  the  amateurs 
selfish  in  preserving  their  incognito.  It  was  simple  fare, 
typified  by  such  uproarious  jokes  as: 

"Ungry,  are  you?  Well,  'ere,  'ere's  a  piece  of  chalk. 
Go  draw  yourself  a  plate  of  'am  an'  eggs." 

But  it  all  served  to  pass  the  endless  last  hours  that 
separated  the  war-weary  veterans  from  the  final  ardently 
awaited  return  to  "the  old  woman  an'  the  kids." 

The  tramp  of  hundreds  of  hobnailed  shoes  on  the  deck 
over  our  heads  awoke  us  at  dawn,  and  by  the  time  we  had 

88 


GETTING  NEUTRALIZED 

reached  the  open  air  Germany  had  been  left  behind.  It 
needed  only  the  glimpse  of  a  cart,  drawn  by  a  dog,  occupied 
by  a  man,  and  with  a  horse  hitched  behind — a  genuine  case 
of  the  cart  before  the  horse — trotting  along  an  elevated 
highway,  sharp-cut  against  the  floor-flat  horizon,  to  tell 
us  we  were  in  Holland.  Besides,  there  were  stodgy  wind- 
mills slowly  laboring  on  every  hand,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
rather  unprepossessing  young  Dutch  lieutenant,  in  his 
sickly  gray-green  uniform,  who  had  boarded  us  at  the 
frontier,  to  confirm  the  change  of  nationality  of  Father 
Rhine.  The  lieutenant's  duties  consisted  of  graciously 
accepting  an  occasional  sip  of  the  genuine  old  Scotch  that 
graced  the  sideboard  of  the  youthful  commanding  officer, 
and  of  seeing  to  it  that  the  rifles  of  the  Tommies  remained 
under  lock  and  key  until  they  reached  their  sea-going  vessel 
at  the  mouth  of  the  river — a  task  that  somehow  suggested 
a  Lilliputian  sent  to  escort  a  regiment  of  giants  through  his 
diminutive  kingdom. 

In  the  little  cluster  of  officers  on  the  upper  deck  the 
conversation  rarely  touched  on  war  deeds,  even  casually, 
though  one  knew  that  many  a  thrilling  tale  was  hidden 
away  in  their  memories.  The  talk  was  all  of  rehabilitation, 
rebuilding  of  the  civilian  lives  that  the  Great  Adventure 
had  in  so  many  cases  all  but  wholly  wrecked.  Among  the 
men  below  there  was  more  apathy,  more  silent  dreaming, 
interspersed  now  and  then  by  those  crude  witticisms  with 
which  their  class  breaks  such  mental  tension : 

"These  'ere  blinkin'  Dutch  girls  always  makes  me  think 
as  'ow  their  faces  'ave  been  mashed  by  a  steam-roller  an' 
their  bloomin'  legs  blowed  up  with  a  bicycle  pump,  so 
'elp  me!" 

The  remark  might  easily  be  rated  an  exaggeration,  but 
the  solid  Jongmouws  who  clattered  their  wooden-shod  way 
along  the  banks  could  not  in  all  fairness  have  been  called 
delicate. 

89 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

I  was  conscious  of  a  flicker  of  surprise  when  the  Dutch 
authorities  welcomed  me  ashore  without  so  much  as  open- 
ing my  baggage — particularly  as  I  was  still  in  uniform. 
The  hotel  I  chose  turned  out  to  be  German  in  ownership 
and  personnel.  Steeped  in  the  yarns  of  the  past  five  years, 
I  looked  forward  to  at  least  the  excitement  of  having  spies 
go  through  my  baggage  the  moment  I  left  it  unguarded. 
Possibly  they  did;  if  so,  they  were  superhumanly  clever  in 
repacking  the  stuff  as  they  found  it. 

If  I  had  been  so  foolish  as  to  suppose  that  I  could  hurry 
on  at  once  into  Germany  I  should  have  been  sadly  disap- 
pointed. The  first  of  the  several  duties  before  me  was  to 
apply  to  the  police  for  a  Dutch  identity  card.  Without  it 
no  one  could  exist  at  liberty  in  nor  leave  the  flat  little 
kingdom.  As  usually  happens  in  such  cases,  when  one  is 
in  a  hurry,  the  next  day  was  Sunday.  The  chief  excitement 
in  Rotterdam  on  the  day  of  rest  was  no  longer  the  Zoo, 
but  the  American  camp,  a  barbed-wire  inclosure  out  along 
the  wharves  about  which  the  Dutchman  and  his  wife  and 
progeny  packed  a  dozen  rows  deep  to  gaze  at  doughboys 
tossing  baseballs  or  swinging  boxing-gloves,  with  about 
as  much  evidence  cf  the  amusement  as  they  might  show 
before  a  Rembrandt  or  a  Van  Dyck  painting.  Naturally 
so  hilarious  a  Sabbath  passes  swiftly  for  a  man  eager  to  be 
elsewhere ! 

There  were,  of  course,  the  window  displays  of  the  closed 
shops,  of  unfailing  interest  to  any  one  long  familiar  only 
with  warring  lands.  No  wonder  these  placid  Dutchmen 
looked  so  full-cheeked  and  contented.  Though  a  trades- 
man may  have  found  some  things  missing,  to  the  casual 
eye  there  were  apparently  none  of  the  material  good  things 
of  life  that  could  not  be  had  in  superabundance.  Butter, 
eggs,  cakes,  bonbons,  fat  bacon,  meat  of  every  species, 
sweets  of  all  kinds,  soap  as  good  and  as  cheap  as  before 
the  war,  cigarettes,  cigars,  and  tobacco  enough  to  have 

90 


GETTING  NEUTRALIZED 

set  all  France  to  rioting,  all  those  little  dainties  which  the 
gormands  of  the  belligerent  countries  had  ceased  even 
to  sigh  for,  were  here  tantalizingly  spread  out  for  block 
after  block,  street  after  street.  Restaurants  ostentated 
menu  -  cards  offering  anything  a  hungry  man  could  pay 
for;  milk  was  to  be  had  every  few  yards  at  ten  Dutch 
cents  a  glass.  One  had  something  of  the  sensation  that 
would  come  from  seeing  diamonds  and  gold  nuggets  strewn 
along  the  way  just  around  the  corner  from  the  abode  of  a 
band  of  unsuccessful  yeggmen.  With  the  caution  bred  of 
nineteen  months  in  France  I  had  filled  the  interstices  of 
my  baggage  with  chocolate  and  cigars.  It  was  like  car- 
rying gloves  to  Grenoble.  Nothing  was  more  abundantly 
displayed  in  the  windows  of  Rotterdam  than  those  two 
articles. 

A  closer  inspection,  however,  showed  that  Holland  had 
not  entirely  escaped  the  secondary  effects  of  the  war.  The 
milk  that  still  sold  so  cheaply  showed  a  distinct  evidence 
now  of  too  close  an  alliance  between  the  herd  and  the  pump. 
If  the  restaurants  were  fully  supplied  from  hors-d'ceuvre 
to  coffee,  the  aftermath  was  a  very  serious  shock  to  the 
financial  system.  There  seemed,  moreover,  to  be  no  place 
where  the  average  rank  and  file  of  laboring  humanity  could 
get  its  wholesome  fill  for  a  reasonable  portion  of  its  income. 
The  bonbons  were  a  trifle  pasty;  the  cigars  not  only  as 
expensive  as  across  the  Atlantic — which  means  manyfold 
more  than  the  old  Dutch  prices — they  were  far  more  invit- 
ing behind  a  plate-glass  than  when  burning  in  front  of  the 
face.  The  clothing  that  was  offered  in  such  abundance 
usually  confessed  frankly  to  membership  in  the  shoddy 
class.  Suspenders  and  garters  had  all  but  lost  their  elas- 
ticity ;  shoes — except  the  more  popular  Dutch  variety — had 
soared  to  the  lofty  realms  to  which  all  articles  of  leather 
have  ascended  the  world  over.  Bicycles,  the  Dutchman's 
chief  means  of  locomotion,  however,  seemed  as  easily  within 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

reach  as  if  the  far-spread  "rubber  crisis"  had  never  dis- 
covered this  corner  of  Europe. 

Yet  on  the  whole  these  happy,  red  -  cheeked,  overfed 
Dutchmen  did  not  seem  to  have  a  care  in  the  world.  Their 
attitude  toward  the  American  uniform  appeared  to  be  cold, 
at  best  not  above  indifference,  though  the  new  doughboy 
weekly  credited  them  with  genuine  friendliness.  One  got 
the  impression  that  they  were  pro-Ally  or  pro-Boche  inter- 
changeably, as  it  served  their  own  interests — which  after 
all  is  quite  in  keeping  with  human  nature  the  world  round. 
The  most  serious  task  of  the  American  detachment  was  to 
prevent  the  supplies  destined  for  hungry  Europe  beyond 
from  dwindling  under  the  hands  of  the  Dutch  stevedores 
who  transhipped  them.  It  would,  perhaps,  be  unfair  to 
call  the  stodgy  little  nation  a  war  profiteer,  yet  there  were 
suggestions  on  all  sides  that  it  had  not  always  scorned  to 
take  advantage  of  the  distress  of  its  neighbors.  I  may  be 
prejudiced,  but  I  did  not  find  the  Hollanders  what  the 
Spaniards  calls  simpdtico,  not  even  so  much  as  I  had  fifteen 
years  before.  If  I  may  so  express  it,  the  kingdom  left  the 
same  impression  one  feels  upon  meeting  an  old  classmate 
who  has  amassed  wealth  in  some  of  the  quicker,  less  laborious 
methods  our  own  land  affords.  One  rejoices,  in  a  way, 
at  his  prosperity,  yet  one  feels  more  in  tune  with  the  less 
"successful"  old-time  friend  who  has  been  mellowed  by 
his  fair  share  of  adversities. 

Monday,  though  it  was  the  last  day  of  April,  shivered 
under  a  ragged  blanket  of  wet  snow.  The  line-up  at  the 
police  station  was  international  and  it  was  long.  Further- 
more, the  lieutenants  behind  the  extemporized  wickets 
were  genuinely  Dutch;  they  neither  gossiped  nor  loafed, 
yet  they  did  not  propose  to  let  the  haste  of  a  disorderly 
outside  world  disturb  their  racial  serenity  or  jar  their 
superb  penmanship.  They  preserved  the  same  sense  of 
order  amid  the  chaos  that  surrounded  their  tight  little 

92 


GETTING  NEUTRALIZED 

land  as  the  magnificent  policemen  directing  traffic  in  the 
main  streets  outside,  who  halted  the  stranger  inadvertently 
following  the  wrong  sidewalk  with  a  courteous  but  exceed- 
ingly firm  "You  are  taking  a  valk  on  the  rhight  side  of  the 
street,  pleasse."  In  the  course  of  two  hours  I  reached  a 
wicket — only  to  find  that  I  needed  two  photographs.  By 
the  time  I  had  been  mugged  and  reached  the  head  of  the 
international  line  again  another  day  had  drifted  into  the 
irredeemable  past. 

It  was  not  easy  to  get  the  Hollander  to  talk  of  the  war 
and  its  kindred  topics,  even  when  one  found  him  able 
to  speak  some  better-known  tongue  than  his  own.  He 
seemed  to  hold  the  subject  in  some  such  abhorrence  as 
cultured  persons  do  the  latest  scandal,  or,  more  exactly, 
perhaps,  to  look  upon  it  as  a  highly  successful  soap  manu- 
facturer does  the  plebeian  commodity  on  which  his  social 
superstructure  is  erected.  Americans  who  had  been  in 
the  country  long  enough  to  penetrate  a  bit  below  the  surface 
were  inclined  to  think  that,  if  he  had  any  other  feeling 
than  pro-Dutch,  he  leaned  a  little  to  the  eastward.  Es- 
pecially, however,  was  he  interested  in  seeing  to  it  that 
both  sides  were  given  an  equal  opportunity  of  eating  undis- 
turbed at  his  table — and  paying  well  for  the  privilege. 
In  a  mild  way  a  clean  and  orderly  hotelkeeper  housing 
two  rival  football  teams  would  have  displayed  the  same 
attitude. 

But  gibes  at  either  side  were  not  wholly  tabooed.  At  an 
alleged  "musical  comedy"  in  a  local  theater  the  scene  that 
produced  the  most  audible  mirth  depicted  the  erstwhile 
Kaiser  and  Crown  Prince — excellently  mimed  down  to  the 
crippled  arm  of  the  one  and  the  goat-face  of  the  other — 
enjoying  the  bucolic  hospitality  of  their  land  of  refuge. 
The  father,  dressed  in  one  of  the  most  gorgeous  of  his 
innumerable  uniforms,  stood  at  a  convenient  block,  splitting 
kindling  with  a  one-handed  hatchet;  the  son,Jui  wooden 

93 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

shoes  and  a  Zuyder  Zee  cap,  sat  on  a  pierhead  serenely 
fishing.  Above  their  heads  stood  a  road-sign  pointing  in 
opposite  directions  to: 

"PARIS — 45,000  kilometers;  CALAIS— 75,000  kilo- 
meters." 

Their  extended  quarrel  on  who  started  the  war,  and  why, 
brought  no  evidence  of  pro-German  sympathy  from  the 
audience.  It  was  easy  to  imagine  the  horrified  protest 
from  the  German  Legation  which  such  a  skit  would  have 
brought  down  upon  the  producer's  head  a  year  before. 
A  scene  that  caused  little  less  mirth  showed  a  Dutch  frontier 
guard  so  hoary  with  service  that  their  clothing  had  sprouted 
toadstools  and  their  feet  barnacles. 

The  more  widely  I  inquired  the  more  unlikely  seemed  the 
possibility  of  getting  into  Germany.  This  was  in  keeping 
with  my  experiences  in  other  lands,  had  I  stopped  to  think 
of  it,  where  it  had  always  proved  simpler  to  dash  forward 
on  a  difficult  trip  first  and  make  inquiries  afterward.  Our 
consulate  in  Rotterdam  had  no  suggestions  to  offer  and 
advised  me  to  see  our  Legation  at  The  Hague.  An  excellent 
train,  showing  no  evidence  that  the  world  had  ever  been  at 
war,  set  me  down  at  the  Dutch  capital  an  hour  later. 

"You  want  to  get  into  Germany?"  queried  the  Legation, 
with  elevated  eyebrows.  "Well,  all  we  can  say  is  God  bless 
you!" 

A  deeper  probing,  however,  showed  that  this  was  only  the 
official  voice  speaking. 

"Personally,"  continued  the  particular  secretary  to  whom 
I  had  appealed,  with  a  decided  accent  on  the  word,  "I  would 
suggest  that  you  see  the  German  Legation.  Officially,  of 
course,  we  do  not  know  that  any  such  place  exists,  but — I 
have  heard — quite  unofficially — that  there  is  a  Herr  Maltzen 
there  who.  .  .  .  But  of  course  you  could  not  call  on  him 
in  American  khaki.  ..." 

I  came  near  making  the  faux  pas  of  asking  where  the  Ger- 

94 


GETTING  NEUTRALIZED 

man  Legation  was  situated.  Of  course  the  secretary  could 
not  have  known  officially.  The  first  passer-by  outside, 
however,  readily  pointed  it  out  to  me — just  around  the 
corner.  By  the  time  I  had  returned  to  Rotterdam  and 
outfitted  myself  in  civilian  garb  carefully  adjusted  to  pass 
muster  at  so  exacting  a  function  as  a  German  official  visit 
and  at  the  same  time  not  to  suggest  wealth  to  fellow-road- 
sters should  I  succeed  in  entering  the  Empire,  another  day 
had  been  added  to  my  debit  column. 

On  the  train  to  The  Hague  next  morning  I  tested  the 
disguise  which  exceedingly  European  clothing,  a  recently 
acquired  mustache,  and  the  remnants  of  a  tongue  I  had 
once  spoken  rather  fluently  afforded  by  playing  German 
before  my  fellow-passengers.  To  all  outward  appearances 
the  attempt  was  successful,  but  try  as  I  would  I  saw  a 
German  spy  in  every  rosy-cheeked,  prosperous  Dutchman 
who  turned  his  bovine  eyes  fixedly  upon  me.  Herr  Maltzen's 
office  hours  were  not  until  five  in  the  afternoon.  When 
at  last  I  was  ushered  into  his  august  presence  I  summoned 
my  best  German  accent  and  laid  as  much  stress  as  was 
becoming  on  some  distant  relatives  who — the  past  five 
years  willing — still  dwelt  within  the  Empire. 

"The  primary  question,  of  course,"  pronounced  Herr 
Maltzen,  in  the  precise,  resonant  language  of  his  calling, 
"is,  are  you  German  or  are  you  an  American?" 

"American,  certainly,"  I  replied. 

"Ah,  then  it  will  be  difficult,  extremely  difficult,"  boomed 
the  immaculate  Teuton,  solemnly.  "Up  to  nine  days  ago 
I  was  permitted  to  pass  personally  on  the  credentials  of 
foreign  correspondents.  But  now  they  must  be  referred 
to  Berlin.  If  you  care  to  make  official  application  .  .  ." 

"I  hereby  do  so." 

"Unfortunately,  it  is  not  so  simple  as  that.  The  ap- 
plication must  be  in  writing,  giving  references  to  several 
persons  of  the  responsible  class  in  Germany,  with  a  state- 

95 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

ment  of  your  activities  during  the  war,  copies  of  your 
credentials  ..." 

"And  how  soon  could  I  expect  the  answer?" 

"With  the  very  best  of  luck  in  two  weeks,  more  probably 
three  or  four." 

I  returned  to  Rotterdam  in  a  somewhat  dazed  condition, 
having  left  Heir  Maltzen  with  the  impression  that  I  had 
gone  to  think  the  problem  over.  Nor  was  that  a  false 
impression.  It  was  more  of  a  problem  than  even  the 
suave  diplomat  suspected.  It  happened  that  I  had  a  bare 
six  weeks  left  for  a  tramp  "over  in  Germany."  If  I  frittered 
away  three-fourths  of  them  among  the  placid  and  contented 
Dutchmen,  there  would  not  be  much  left  except  the  regret 
of  having  giving  up  the  privilege  of  returning  home — 
eventually — under  army  pay  and  transportation.  More- 
over, rumblings  from  Paris  indicated  that  by  that  time  a 
trip  through  Germany  would  be  of  slight  interest.  I  retired 
that  night  more  nearly  convinced  than  ever  that  I  was 
more  properly  fitted  to  become  a  protectorate  under  the 
mandate  of  some  benevolent  league  of  managers  for  irre- 
sponsible persons  than  to  attempt  to  continue  as  an  auton- 
omous member  of  society. 

Some  time  in  the  small  hours  I  was  rapped  on  the  fore- 
head with  a  brilliant  idea.  So  extraordinary  an  experience 
brought  me  to  a  sitting  posture  and  full  wakefulness.  The 
Food  Commission  had  a  steamer  leaving  next  day  for  Dan- 
zig. What  could  be  more  to  my  purpose  than  to  drop  off 
there  and  tramp  back  to  Holland?  Among  my  possessions 
was  an  elaborately  non-committal  letter — I  had  been  given 
the  privilege  of  dictating  it  myself — from  the  "Hoover 
crowd"  in  Paris,  down  toward  the  end  of  which  it  was 
specifically  stated  that,  while  I  was  not  connected  with  the 
Food  Commission,  they  would  be  glad  if  any  courtesies 
could  be  shown  me.  Carefully  read,  it  would  have  made  a 
rather  satisfactory  prelude  to  the  request  of  a  starving 

96 


GETTING  NEUTRALIZED 

and  stranded  American  to  be  permitted  to  buy  a  half-pound 
of  bacon.  Carelessly  perused,  however,  it  might  easily 
have  been  mistaken  for  a  document  of  some  importance, 
particularly  as  it  was  decorated  with  the  imposing  letter- 
head of  the  "Supreme  Economic  Council."  But  I  had 
scarcely  expected  it  to  be  of  use  until  I  had  succeeded  in 
jimmying  my  way  into  unoccupied  Germany. 

The  Rotterdam  section  of  the  Food  Commission  was 
quite  willing  that  I  go  to  Danzig — or  any  other  place  far 
enough  away  to  make  it  impossible  for  me  to  further  disturb 
their  complicated  labors.  But  their  duties  ceased  when 
they  had  seen  the  relief-ships  loaded.  The  ships  themselves 
were  under  command  of  the  navy.  The  buck  having 
thus  successfully  been  passed,  I  waded  through  a  soggy 
snow-storm  to  the  imposing  Dutch  building  that  housed 
our  officers  in  blue.  An  exceedingly  courteous  naval  com- 
mander gave  the  false  impression  that  he  was  extremely 
sorry  not  to  be  able  to  grant  my  request,  but  the  already 
overcrowded  boat,  the  strict  orders  against  carrying  civilians 
...  In  short,  I  should  have  realized  that  red  tape  is  not 
confined  to  the  khaki-clad  half  of  our  fighting  forces.  I 
shuffled  my  way  back  into  the  heart  of  the  city  in  my  most 
downcast  mood,  tempered  far  beneath  by  a  sneaking  little 
satisfaction  that  at  least  if  I  could  not  get  into  Germany 
I  should  run  no  risk  of  being  boiled  in  oil  by  the  dreadful 
Sparticists  or  tickled  to  death  with  garden  rakes  by  a  grin- 
ning band  of  almond-eyed  Bolsheviki. 

This  would  never  do.  The  sun  had  already  begun  its 
last  April  descent,  and  I  had  surrendered  nearly  three  weeks 
before  the  privilege  of  being  able  to  sit  idle  and  still  draw  a 
salary.  I  resolved  that  May  should  not  catch  me  supinely 
squatting  in  Rotterdam.  The  chief  bridge  was  soon  burned. 
At  the  police  station  my  identity  card  was  stamped  "out" 
so  quickly  as  to  have  given  a  sensitive  person  the  impression 
that  the  country  was  only  too  glad  to  be  rid  of  him.  At 

97 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

least  I  must  leave  Holland,  and  if  I  left  in  an  easterly  direc- 
tion there  was  only  one  place  that  I  could  bring  up.  But 
what  of  Herr  Maltzen?  My  dime-novel  conception  of 
international  espionage  pictured  him  as  having  set  a  half- 
dozen  of  his  most  trusted  agents  to  dogging  my  footsteps. 
I  would  outwit  them!  I  hastened  back  to  the  hotel  and 
wrote  the  Teuton  envoy  an  elaborate  application  for  per- 
mission to  enter  Germany,  with  references,  copies  of  creden- 
tials, and  touching  as  gently  as  possible  on  my  unseemly 
activities  during  the  war.  Unfortunately,  I  could  recall 
the  name  and  address  of  only  one  of  those  distant  German 
relatives  of  whom  I  had  boasted;  the  others  I  was  forced 
to  fake,  arousing  new  misgivings  in  my  penny-dreadful 
conscience.  In  conclusion  I  added  the  subtle  misleader 
that  while  awaiting  his  reply  I  should  make  the  most  of  my 
time  by  journeying  about  Holland  and  possibly  elsewhere. 
Then  I  tossed  into  a  straw  suitcase  a  few  indispensable 
articles,  the  confiscation  of  which  I  felt  I  could  survive,  and 
dashed  for  the  evening  train  to  the  eastern  frontier. 

To  carry  out  still  further  my  movie-bred  disguise  I  took 
third-class  and  mingled  with  the  inconspicuous  multitude. 
There  was  no  use  attempting  to  conceal  myself  in  the  coal- 
bin  or  to  bribe  the  guard  to  lend  me  his  uniform,  for  the  train 
did  not  go  beyond  the  border.  On  the  platform  I  met  an 
American  lieutenant  in  full  uniform,  bound  for  Hamburg 
as  a  courier;  but  I  cut  our  interview  as  short  as  courtesy 
permitted,  out  of  respect  for  Herr  Maltzen's  lynx-eyed 
agents.  The  lieutenant's  suggestion  that  I  ride  boldly 
with  him  in  first-class  comfort  gave  me  a  very  poor  impres- 
sion of  his  subtlety.  Evidently  he  was  not  well  read  in 
detective  and  spy  literature.  However,  there  was  comfort 
in  the  feeling  of  having  a  fellow-countryman,  particularly 
one  of  official  standing,  within  easy  reach. 

Holland  lay  dormant  and  featureless  under  a  soggy  snow 
coverlet.  Many  of  her  hundreds  of  fat  cattle  wore  canvas 

98 


GETTING  NEUTRALIZED 

jackets.  Every  town  and  village  was  gay  with  flags  in 
honor  of  the  tenth  birthday  of  the  Dutch  princess,  a  date 
of  great  importance  within  the  little  kingdom,  though  quite 
unnoticed  by  the  world  at  large.  The  prosperous,  well- 
dressed  workmen  in  my  compartment,  having  been  incon- 
spicuously let  into  the  secret  that  I  was  a  German,  jokingly- 
seriously  inquired  whether  I  was  a  Sparticist  or  a  Bol- 
shevik. It  was  evident  that  they  were  too  well  fed  to 
have  any  sympathy  for  either.  Then  they  took  to  com- 
plaining that  my  putative  fatherland  did  not  send  them 
enough  coal,  asserting  that  thousands  had  died  in  Holland 
for  lack  of  heat  during  the  past  few  winters.  Beyond 
Utrecht  the  long  stretch  of  sterile  sand-dunes  aroused  a 
well-schooled  carpenter  whose  German  was  fluent  to  explain 
why  Holland  could  not  agree  to  any  exchange  of  territory 
with  Belgium.  To  give  up  the  strip  of  land  opposite 
Flushing  would  mean  making  useless  the  strong  Dutch 
fortifications  there.  The  piece  farther  east  offered  in 
exchange  looked  all  very  well  on  the  map,  but  it  was  just 
such  useless  heather  as  this  we  were  gazing  out  upon. 
Holland  could  not  accept  a  slice  of  Germany — Emden,  for 
instance — instead,  because  that  would  be  certain  sooner 
or  later  to  lead  to  war.  Of  course,  he  added,  teasingly, 
Holland  could  beat  Germany  with  wooden  shoes  now, 
but  ten  years  hence  it  would  not  be  so  easy.  Besides,  the 
Dutch  did  not  care  for  a  part  of  Belgium,  though  the 
Flemish  population  was  eager  to  join  them.  They  were 
quite  content  to  remain  a  small  country.  Big  countries, 
like  rich  individuals,  had  too  many  troubles,  aroused  too 
much  envy.  He  might  have  added  that  the  citizens  of  a 
small  country  have  more  opportunity  of  keeping  in  close 
touch  with  all  national  questions,  but  his  own  speech  was  a 
sufficient  demonstration  of  that  fact.  He  knew,  for  example, 
just  what  portions  of  the  Zuyder  Zee  were  to  be  reclaimed, 
and  marked  them  on  my  map.  All  the  southern  end  was  to 
8  99 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

be  pumped  out,  then  two  other  strips  farther  north.  But 
the  sections  north  and  south  of  Stavoren  were  to  be  left  as 
they  were.  The  soil  was  not  worth  the  cost  of  uncovering 
it  and  the  river  Yssel  must  be  left  an  outlet  to  the  ocean, 
a  viaduct  sufficing  to  carry  the  railway  to  the  peninsula 
opposite. 

It  may  have  been  the  waving  flags  that  turned  the  con- 
versation to  the  royal  family.  A  gardener  who  had  long 
worked  for  them  scornfully  branded  as  canards  the  rumors 
in  the  outside  world  that  the  German  consort  was  not 
popular.  The  prince  was  quite  democratic — royalty  radiates 
democracy  nowadays  the  world  over,  apparently — and  was 
so  genuinely  Dutch  that  he  would  not  speak  German  with 
any  one  who  knew  any  other  tongue.  He  spoke  most  of 
the  European  ones  himself,  and  in  addition  Tamil  and 
Hindustani.  He  took  no  part  whatever  in  the  govern- 
ment— unless  he  advised  the  Queen  unofficially  in  the 
privacy  of  their  own  chamber — but  was  interested  chiefly 
in  the  Boy  Scout  movement,  in  connection  with  which  he 
hoped  to  visit  the  United  States  after  the  war.  They  were 
a  very  loving  couple,  quite  as  much  so  as  if  they  were  per- 
fectly ordinary  people. 

By  this  time  the  short  northern  night  had  fallen.  With 
two  changes  of  cars  I  rattled  on  into  it  and  brought  up  at 
Oldenzaal  on  the  frontier  at  a  late  hour.  The  American 
lieutenant  put  up  at  the  same  hotel  with  me  and  we  dis- 
cussed the  pros  and  cons  of  my  hopes  of  getting  into  Ger- 
many. They  were  chiefly  cons.  The  lieutenant  was  quite 
willing  for  me  to  make  use  of  his  presence  consistent  with 
army  ethics,  and  I  retired  with  a  slightly  rosier  view  of 
the  situation. 

In  the  morning  this  tint  had  wholly  disappeared.  I 
could  not  stir  up  a  spark  of  optimism  anywhere  in  my 
system.  Army  life  has  a  way  of  sapping  the  springs  of 
personal  initiative.  To  say  that  I  was  99  per  cent,  convinced 

100 


GETTING  NEUTRALIZED 

that  I  would  be  back  in  Oldenzaal  before  the  day  was  over 
would  be  an  under-statement.  I  would  have  traded  my 
chances  of  passing  the  frontier  for  a  Dutch  cigar.  I  bought 
a  ticket  on  the  shuttle  train  to  the  first  German  station 
in  much  the  same  spirit  that  a  poker-player  throws  his 
last  dollar  into  a  game  that  has  been  going  against  him  since 
the  night  before. 

As  a  refinement  of  cruelty  the  Dutch  authorities  sub- 
mitted us  to  a  second  customs  examination,  even  more 
searching  than  that  at  our  arrival.  They  relentlessly  fer- 
reted out  the  foodstuffs  hidden  away  in  the  most  unlikely 
corners  of  the  smallest  luggage,  and  dropped  them  under 
the  low  counter  at  their  feet.  An  emaciated  woman  bearing 
an  Austrian  passport  was  thus  relieved  of  seventeen  parcels, 
down  to  those  containing  a  half-pound  of  butter  or  a  slice 
of  cheese.  In  her  case  not  even  her  midday  train  lunch 
escaped.  No  one  could  complain  that  the  blockade  require- 
ment against  Holland  reshipping  to  Germany  was  being 
violated  at  Oldenzaal.  As  we  passed  out  the  door  to  the 
platform  a  soldier  ran  his  hands  up  and  down  our  persons 
in  search  of  suspicious  lumps  and  bulges.  My  Dutch 
identity  card  had  been  taken  away  from  me;  I  no  longer 
had  the  legal  right  to  exist  anywhere.  Once  on  the  train, 
however,  the  food  blockade  proved  to  have  been  less  water- 
tight than  it  had  seemed.  As  usual,  the  "wise  ones"  had 
found  means  of  evading  it.  Several  experienced  travelers 
had  provided  themselves  with  official  authorization  to 
bring  in  ten  or  twelve  pounds  of  Lebensmittel.  A  few  others 
aroused  the  envy  of  their  fellow-passengers — once  the 
boundary  was  passed — by  producing  succulent  odds  and 
ends  from  secret  linings  of  their  baggage.  One  loud-voiced 
individual  asserted  that  there  was  much  smuggling  through 
the  forests  beside  us.  It  is  not  likely,  however,  that  the 
food  that  escapes  the  Oldenzaal  search  brought  much  relief 
to  the  hunger  of  Germany. 

101 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

The  thin-faced  Austrian  woman  sat  hunched  in  a  far 
corner  of  the  compartment,  noiselessly  crying.  Two  mid- 
dle-aged Germans  of  the  professor-municipal-employee 
caste  whispered  cautiously  together  on  the  opposite  cushion. 
As  we  passed  the  swampy  little  stream  that  marks  the 
boundary  they  each  solemnly  gave  it  a  military  salute, 
and  from  that  moment  on  raised  their  voices  to  a  quite 
audible  pitch.  One  displayed  a  sausage  he  had  wrapped  in 
a  pair  of  trousers.  The  other  produced  from  a  vest  pocket 
a  tiny  package  of  paper-soap  leaves,  each  the  size  of  a  visit- 
ing-card. He  pressed  three  or  four  of  them  upon  his  com- 
panion. The  latter  protested  that  he  could  not  accept 
so  serious  a  sacrifice.  The  other  insisted,  and  the  grateful 
recipient  bowed  low  and  raised  his  hat  twice  in  thanks 
before  he  stowed  the  precious  leaves  away  among  his  pri- 
vate papers.  They  passed  a  few  remarks  about  the  unfair- 
ness of  the  food  blockade,  particularly  since  the  signing  of  the 
armistice.  One  spoke  scornfully  of  the  attempt  of  the 
Allies  to  draw  a  line  between  the  German  government  and 
the  people — there  was  no  such  division,  he  asserted.  But 
by  this  time  we  were  grinding  to  a  halt  in  Bentheim,  in  all 
probability  the  end  of  my  German  journey. 

The  passengers  and  their  hand-luggage  jammed  toward 
a  door  flanked  by  several  German  non-coms,  and  a  hand- 
some young  lieutenant.  I  pressed  closely  on  the  heels  of 
the  American  courier.  He  was  received  with  extreme 
courtesy  by  the  German  lieutenant,  who  personally  saw  to 
it  that  he  was  unmolested  by  boundary  or  customs  officials, 
and  conducted  him  to  the  outgoing  waiting-room  toward 
which  we  were  all  striving.  Meanwhile  a  sergeant  had 
studied  my  passport,  quite  innocent  of  the  German  vise, 
dropped  it  into  the  receptacle  of  doubtful  papers,  and 
motioned  to  me  to  stand  back  and  let  the  others  pass, 
exactly  as  I  had  expected  him  to  do.  How  ridiculous  of 
me  to  fancy  I  could  bluff  my  way  through  a  cordon  of  Ger- 

IO2 


GETTING  NEUTRALIZED 

man  officials,  as  if  they  had  been  French  or  Italian !  Would 
they  shut  me  up  or  merely  toss  me  back  on  the  Dutch? 
The  last  of  my  legitimate  fellow-passengers  passed  on 
into  the  forbidden  land  and  left  me  standing  quite  alone 
in  the  little  circle  of  German  non-coms.  One  of  them 
rescued  my  passport  and  handed  it  to  the  handsome  young 
lieutenant  as  he  returned.  He  looked  at  me  questioningly. 
I  addressed  him  in  German  and  slipped  the  weak-kneed 
Food  Commission  letter  into  his  hands.  Perhaps — but, 
alas!  my  last  hope  gave  a  last  despairing  gasp  and  died; 
the  lieutenant  read  English  as  easily  as  you  or  I ! 

"You  see,"  I  began,  lamely,  "as  a  correspondent,  and 
more  or  less  connected  with  the  Food  Commission,  I  wished 
to  have  a  glimpse  of  the  distribution  from  Hamburg — and 
I  can  catch  one  of  their  ships  back  from  there  to  Rotterdam. 
Then  as  the  lieutenant  I  am  with  speaks  no  German,  I 
offered  to  act  as  interpreter  for  him  on  the  way.  I  ... 
I  ..." 

I  was  waiting,  of  course,  to  hear  the  attentive  listener 
bellow  the  German  version  of,  "You  poor  fish!  do  you 
think  you  can  pull  that  kind  of  bull  on  me!"  Instead,  he 
bowed  slightly  in  acknowledgment  of  my  explanation  and 
looked  more  closely  at  my  passport. 

"You  should  have  had  this  stamped  at  the  German 
Legation  in  The  Hague,"  he  remarked,  softly. 

"I  did  not  know  until  shortly  before  the  train  left  that  the 
lieutenant  was  coming,"  I  added,  hastily,  "so  there  was  no 
time  for  that.  I  thought  that,  with  the  letter  from  the 
Food  Commission  also  ..." 

Either  I  am  really  very  simple — in  my  particular  asinine 
moments  I  feel  the  certainty  of  that  fact — or  I  have  been 
vouchsafed  the  gift  of  putting  on  a  very  simple  face.  The 
German  gazed  an  instant  into  my  innocent  eyes,  then 
glanced  again  at  the  letter. 

"Yes,  of  course,"  he  replied,  turning  toward  an  experience- 

103 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

faced  old  Feldwebel  across  the  room.  "Will  you  be  kind 
enough  to  wait  a  moment?" 

This  gentle-voiced  young  officer,  whom  I  had  rather 
expected  to  kick  me  a  few  times  in  the  ribs  and  perhaps 
knock  me  down  once  or  twice  with  the  butt  of  his  side-arm, 
returned  within  the  period  specified  and  handed  my  papers 
back  to  me. 

"I  have  not  the  authority  myself  to  pass  on  your  case," 
he  explained.  "I  am  only  a  Leutnant,  and  I  shall  have  to 
refer  it  to  the  Oberleutnant  at  the  Schloss  in  town.  I  do  not 
think,  however,  that  he  will  make  the  slightest  difficulty." 

I  thought  differently.  The  Ober  would  almost  cer- 
tainly be  some  "hard-boiled"  old  warrior  who  would  sub- 
ject me  to  all  those  brutalities  his  underling  had  for  some 
reason  seen  fit  to  avoid.  Still  there  was  nothing  to  do  but 
play  the  game  through. 

"I  shall  send  a  man  with  you  to  show  the  way,"  continued 
the  lieutenant.  "You  have  plenty  of  time;  the  train  does 
not  leave  for  two  hours.  Meanwhile  you  may  as  well 
finish  the  other  formalities  and  be  ready  to  go  on  when  you 
return." 

A  customs  officer  rummaged  through  my  hamper. 

"No  more  soap?"  he  queried,  greedily,  as  he  caught  sight 
of  the  two  bars  I  possessed.  Evidently  he  had  hoped  to 
find  enough  to  warrant  confiscation.  His  next  dig  un- 
earthed three  cakes  of  commissary  chocolate.  He  carefully 
lifted  them  out  and  carried  them  across  the  room.  My 
escapade  was  already  beginning  to  cost  me  dearly,  for  real 
chocolate  is  the  European  traveler's  most  valuable  pos- 
session in  war-time.  He  laid  the  precious  stuff  on  a  pair 
of  scales,  filled  out  a  long  green  form,  and  handed  it  to  me 
as  he  carefully  tucked  the  chocolate  back  in  my  hamper. 

"Forty-five  pfennigs  duty,"  he  said. 

At  the  current  exchange  that  was  nearly  four  cents! 

A  second  official  halted  me  to  inquire  how  much  German 

104 


GETTING  NEUTRALIZED 

money  I  had  in  my  possession.  I  confessed  to  twenty-five 
hundred  marks,  and  exhibited  the  thick  wad  of  brand-new 
fifty-mark  Scheine  I  carried  like  so  much  stationery  in  a 
coat  pocket.  There  was  no  use  attempting  to  conceal  it, 
for  just  beyond  were  the  little  cabins  where  passengers  were 
submitted  to  personal  search.  Luckily  I  had  left  some 
money  behind  in  Rotterdam,  in  case  they  confiscated  all 
of  this.  But  the  official  was  making  out  a  new  form. 

"This,"  he  said,  handing  it  to  me,  "is  a  certificate  for  the 
amount  you  are  bringing  in  with  you.  When  you  leave 
Germany  take  this  to  any  branch  of  the  Reichsbank  and  get 
another  permitting  you  to  take  out  with  you  again  whatever 
is  left.  Otherwise  you  can  take  only  fifty  marks." 

In  the  cabin  next  the  one  I  entered  a  man  was  buttoning 
his  trousers.  Stories  of  skins  being  treated  to  a  lemon 
massage  to  detect  secret  writing  surged  up  in  my  memory. 
I  had  no  concealed  valuables,  but  I  have  never  learned  to 
submit  cheerfully  to  the  indignity  of  personal  search.  I 
turned  a  grim  visage  toward  the  not  immaculate  soldier 
who  had  entered  with  me. 

"Hollander?"  he  asked,  as  I  prepared  to  strip. 

"American,"  I  admitted,  for  once  regretfully.  He 
would  no  doubt  make  the  most  of  that  fact. 

"Indeed!"  he  said,  his  eyes  lighting  up  with  interest. 
"Have  you  any  valuables  on  your  person?"  he  continued, 
stopping  me  by  a  motion  from  removing  my  coat. 

"None  but  the  money  I  have  declared,"  I  replied. 

"Thank  you,"  he  said,  opening  the  door.  "That  is  all. 
Good  day." 

A  thin  soldier  with  a  greenish-gray  face  and  hollow  eyes, 
dressed  in  field  gray  that  had  seen  long  service,  was  assigned 
to  conduct  me  to  the  Schloss.  Twice  on  the  way  he  pro- 
tested that  I  was  walking  too  fast  for  him.  A  long  alley- 
way of  splendid  trees  led  to  the  town,  the  population  of 
which  was  very  noticeably  thinner  and  less  buoyant  of 

105 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

step  than  the  Hollanders  a  few  miles  behind.  At  the  foot 
of  an  aged  castle  on  a  hillock  the  soldier  opened  the  door 
of  a  former  lodge  and  stepped  in  after  me.  The  military 
office  strikingly  resembled  one  of  our  own — little  except 
the  Jeldgrau  instead  of  khaki  was  different.  A  half-dozen 
soldiers  and  three  or  four  non-coms,  were  lounging  at  several 
tables  sprinkled  with  papers,  ink-bottles,  and  official  stamps. 
Two  typewriters  sat  silent,  a  sheet  of  unfinished  business 
drooping  over  their  rolls.  Three  privates  were  "horse- 
playing"  in  one  corner;  two  others  were  loudly  engaged 
in  a  friendly  argument;  the  rest  were  reading  newspapers 
or  humorous  weeklies;  and  all  were  smoking.  The  Feldwebel 
in  charge  laid  his  cigarette  on  his  desk  and  stepped  toward 
me.  My  guide  sat  down  like  a  man  who  had  finished  a  long 
day's  journey  and  left  me  to  state  my  own  case.  I  retold 
my  story.  At  the  word  "American"  the  soldiers  slowly 
looked  up,  then  gradually  gathered  around  me.  Their 
faces  were  entirely  friendly,  with  a  touch  of  curiosity. 
They  asked  a  few  simple  questions,  chiefly  on  the  subject 
of  food  and  tobacco  conditions  in  Allied  territory.  One 
wished  to  know  how  soon  I  thought  it  would  be  possible  to 
emigrate  to  America.  The  Feldwebel  looked  at  my  papers, 
sat  down  at  his  desk  with  them,  and  reached  for  an  official 
stamp.  Then  he  seemed  to  change  his  mind,  rose,  and 
entered  an  inner  office.  A  middle-aged,  rather  hard-faced 
first  lieutenant  came  out  with  him.  The  soldiers  did  not 
even  rise  to  their  feet.  The  Ober  glanced  at  me,  then  at 
my  papers  in  the  hands  of  the  Feldwebel. 

"I  see  no  objection,"  he  said,  then  turned  on  his  heel 
and  disappeared. 

When  the  Feldwebel  had  indorsed  my  passport  I  sug- 
gested that  he  stamp  the  Food  Commission  also.  A  Ger- 
man military  imprint  would  give  it  the  final  touch  within 
the  Empire,  at  least  for  any  officials  who  did  not  read 
English  well.  The  under-officer  carried  out  the  suggestion 

106 


GETTING  NEUTRALIZED 

without  comment,  and  handed  the  papers  back  to  me.  I 
had  permission  to  go  when  I  chose. 

Before  I  had  done  so,  thanks  to  the  continued  curiosity 
of  the  soldiers,  the  Oberleutnant  sent  word  that  he  wished 
to  see  me.  I  kicked  myself  inwardly  for  not  having  gone 
while  the  going  was  good,  and  entered  his  private  office. 
He  motioned  me  to  a  chair,  sat  down  himself,  and  fell 
to  asking  me  questions.  They  were  fully  as  disconnected 
and  trivial  as  many  an  interrogation  of  prisoners  I  had 
heard  from  the  lips  of  American  officers.  My  respect  for 
the  stern  discipline  and  trained  staff  of  the  German  army 
was  rapidly  oozing  away.  Like  his  soldiers,  the  C.  O.  of 
Bentheim  seemed  chiefly  interested  in  the  plenitude  and 
price  of  food  and  tobacco  in  France  and  Belgium.  Then 
he  inquired  what  people  were  saying  in  Paris  of  the  peace 
conditions  and  how  soon  they  expected  them  to  be  ready. 

"Sie  kriegen  keine  Friede — they'll  get  no  peace!"  he  cried 
suddenly,  with  considerable  heat,  when  I  had  mumbled 
some  sort  of  answer.  Then  he  abruptly  changed  the  sub- 
ject, without  indicating  just  what  form  the  lack  of  peace 
would  take,  and  returned  again  to  food. 

"What  will  Wilson  do  about  his  Fourteen  Points?"  he 
interrupted,  somewhat  later. 

"All  he  can,"  I  answered  evasively,  having  had  no  private 
tip  on  the  President's  plans. 

"Yes,  but  what  can  he,"  demanded  the  German,  "against 
that  other  pair?  We  shall  all  be  swamped  with  Bolshevism 
— America  along  with  the  rest  of  us ! 

"Luckily  for  you  the  train  comes  in  the  morning,"  he 
concluded,  rising  to  indicate  that  the  interview  was  at  an 
end.  "You  would  not  have  found  us  here  this  afternoon. 
May  first  is  a  national  holiday  this  year,  for  the  first  time. 
We  are  a  republic  now,  with  socialistic  leanings,"  he  ended, 
half  savagely,  half  sneeringly. 

An  hour  later  I  was  speeding  toward  Berlin  on  a  fast 

107 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

express.  I  had  always  found  that  a  dash  at  the  heart  of 
things  was  apt  to  be  surer  than  a  dilly-dallying  about  the 
outskirts.  Once  in  the  capital,  I  could  lay  my  plans  on  a 
sounder  foundation  than  by  setting  out  on  my  proposed 
tramp  so  near  the  border.  To  be  sure,  I  had  not  ventured 
to  buy  a  ticket  to  Berlin  at  a  wicket  surrounded  by  a  dozen 
soldiers  who  had  heard  me  assert  that  I  was  going  to  Ham- 
burg. But — Dame  Fortune  seeming  to  have  taken  me 
under  her  wing  for  the  day — a  Dutch  trainman  with  whom 
I  fell  into  conversation  chanced  to  have  such  a  ticket  in 
his  pocket,  which  he  was  only  too  glad  to  sell.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  I  doubt  whether  the  open  purchase  of  the  bit  of 
cardboard  would  have  aroused  any  comment,  much  less 
created  any  difficulties.  Looking  back  on  it  now  from  the 
pinnacle  of  weeks  of  travel  in  all  parts  of  the  German 
Empire,  by  every  possible  means  of  locomotion,  that  teapot 
tempest  of  passing  the  frontier  seems  far  more  than  ridicu- 
lous. It  is  possible  that  the  combination  of  circumstances 
made  admittance — once  gained — seem  easier  than  it  really 
is.  But  I  cannot  shake  off  the  impression  that  the  difficulties 
were  almost  wholly  within  my  own  disordered  brain — 
disordered  because  of  the  wild  tales  that  had  been  dished 
out  to  us  by  the  Allied  press.  It  was,  of  course,  to  the 
advantage  of  the  correspondents  fluttering  about  the  dove- 
cote at  the  head  of  Unter  den  Linden  to  create  the  impres- 
sion that  the  only  way  to  get  into  Germany  was  to  cross 
the  frontier  on  hands  and  knees  in  the  darkest  hour  of  a 
dark  night  at  the  most  swampy  and  inaccessible  spot,  with 
a  rabbit's  foot  grasped  firmly  in  one  hand  and  the  last  will 
and  testament  in  the  other.  The  blague  served  at  least 
two  purposes — perfectly  legitimate  purposes  at  that,  from 
a  professional  point  of  view — it  made  "bully  good  reading" 
at  home,  and  it  scared  off  competition,  in  the  form  of  other 
correspondents,  whose  timorous  natures  precluded  the 
possibility  of  attempting  the  perilous  passage. 

108 


GETTING  NEUTRALIZED 


Though  it  sap  all  the  succeeding  pages  of  the  "suspense" 
so  indispensable  to  continued  interest,  I  may  as  well  confess 
here  as  later  that  I  moved  about  Germany  with  perfect 
freedom  during  all  my  stay  there,  far  more  freely  than  I 
could  have  at  the  same  date  in  either  Allied  or  neutral 
countries,  that  neither  detectives  nor  spies  dogged  my 
footsteps  nor  did  policemen  halt  me  on  every  corner  to 
demand  my  authority  for  being  at  large.  Lest  he  hover 
menacingly  in  the  background  of  some  timorous  reader's 
memory,  embittering  any  dewdrops  of  pleasure  he  may 
wring  from  this  tale,  let  me  say  at  once  that  I  never  again 
heard  from  or  of  the  dreadful  Herr  Maltzen.  Indeed,  the 
castle  of  Bentheim  had  scarcely  disappeared  below  the 
wet  green  horizon  of  a  late  spring  when  I  caught  myself 
grumbling  that  these  simple  Germans  had  wrecked  what 
should  have  been  a  tale  to  cause  the  longest  hair  to  stand 
stiffly  erect  and  the  most  pachydermous  skin  to  develop 
goose-flesh.  Saddest  of  all — let  us  have  the  worst  and  be 
done  with  it — they  continued  that  exasperating  simplicity 
to  the  end,  and  left  me  little  else  for  all  my  labors  than  the 
idle  vaporings  of  a  summer  tourist. 

Contrary  to  my  expectations,  the  train  was  an  excellent 
Schnellzug,  making  rare  stops  and  riding  as  easily  as  if  the 
armistice  conditions  had  not  so  much  as  mentioned  rolling- 
stock.  The  plush  covering  of  several  seats  was  missing, 
as  beyond  the  Rhine,  but  things  were  as  orderly,  the  train- 
men as  polite  and  diligently  bent  on  doing  their  duty  as 
if  they  had  been  under  the  military  command  of  an  exacting 
enemy.  In  our  first-class  compartment  there  were  two 
American  lieutenants  in  uniform,  yet  there  was  not  so  much 
as  a  facial  protest  that  they  should  be  occupying  seats 
while  German  men  and  women  stood  in  the  corridor.  There 
was,  to  be  sure,  a  bit  of  rather  cold  staring,  and  once  what 
might  have  been  called  an  "incident."  At  Osnabruck  we 
were  joined  by  a  cropped-headed  young  German,  wearing 

109 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

the  ribbon  of  the  Iron  Cross  in  the  lapel  of  his  civilian 
clothing,  but  whom  a  chance  word  informed  us  was  still  a 
captain,  accompanied  by  two  older  men.  They  sat  in 
expressionless  silence  for  a  time;  then  one  of  the  older  men 
said,  testily: 

"Let's  see  if  we  can't  find  a  more  congenial  compartment. 
Here  there  is  too  much  English  spoken."  And  the  trio  dis- 
appeared. As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  English  they  heard 
was  being  chiefly  spoken  by  a  Dutch  diplomat  who  had  fallen 
in  with  us.  I  could  not  reflect,  however,  that  to  have  spoken 
German  in  a  French  train  at  that  date  would  have  been 
positively  dangerous.  The  lieutenants  and  the  diplomat 
asserted  that  they  had  never  before  seen  any  such  evidence 
of  feeling  among  the  defeated  enemy,  and  it  is  the  only 
strained  situation  of  the  kind  that  I  recall  having  witnessed 
during  all  my  German  journey.  When  we  changed  cars  at 
Lohne  soldiers  and  civilians  gazed  rather  coldly,  as  well 
as  curiously,  at  the  lieutenants,  yet  even  when  people 
chatted  and  laughed  with  them  there  was  no  outward 
evidence  of  protest. 

There  were  very  few  cattle  and  almost  no  -aborers  in  the 
fields,  though  the  holiday  may  have  accounted  for  the 
absence  of  the  latter.  The  landscape  looked  everywhere 
well  cultivated  and  there  were  no  signs  that  any  except 
purposely  pasture  lands  had  been  allowed  to  lie  fallow. 
Near  Hanover,  with  its  great  engine-works,  stood  hundreds 
of  rusted  locomotives  which  had  been  refused  by  the  Allies. 
Among  them  were  large  numbers  that  the  Germans  had 
drawn  from  Russia  and  which  were  now  useless  even  to 
the  Teutons,  since  they  were  naphtha-burners,  and  naphtha 
was  no  longer  to  be  had  within  the  Empire.  Acres  upon 
acres  of  cars,  both  passenger  and  freight,  filled  another 
yard — cars  from  Posen,  from  Breslau,  from  Munchen,  and 
from  Konigsberg,  from  every  corner  of  Germany.  At 
Nauen  the  masts  of  the  great  wireless  station  from  which 

no 


GETTING  NEUTRALIZED 

we  had  picked  up  most  of  our  German  news  during  the  war 
loomed  into  the  evening  sky,  and  beyond  were  some  immense 
Zeppelin  hangars  bulking  above  the  flat  landscape  like  dis- 
tant mountains.  We  reached  Berlin  on  time  and  before 
dark.  May-day  had  brought  all  city  transportation  to  a 
standstill;  neither  taxi,  carriage,  nor  tramcar  was  to  be 
found — though  it  was  reported  that  this  first  official  national 
holiday  had  been  the  tamest  in  years.  Farmers'  carts  and 
beer  wagons  had  been  turned  into  carryalls  and  transported 
a  score  of  passengers  each,  seated  precariously  on  loose 
boards,  from  station  to  station.  Hotels  were  as  packed 
as  they  seem  to  be  in  all  capitals  in  war-time.  The  magnif- 
icent Adlon,  housing  the  Allied  commissions,  laughed  in 
my  face.  For  two  hours  I  canvassed  that  section  of  the  city 
and  finally  paid  eleven  marks  for  accommodation  in  a  hotel 
of  decayed  gentility  at  the  door  of  which  an  old  sign  read: 
"Fine  rooms  on  the  garden,  two  marks  and  upward."  To 
be  sure,  the  rate  of  exchange  made  the  difference  consider- 
ably less  than  it  seemed — to  those  who  had  purchased  their 
marks  in  the  foreign  market. 


VI 

THE  HEART  OF  THE  HUNGRY  EMPIRE 

IN  many  districts  of  Germany  the  traveler's  eye  was 
frequently  drawn,  during  the  hectic  spring  of  1919,  to  a 
large  colored  poster.  It  showed  two  men;  the  one  cold, 
gaunt,  and  hungry,  huddled  in  the  rags  of  his  old  uniform, 
was  shuffling  through  the  snow,  with  a  large,  dismally 
gray  city  in  the  background;  the  other,  looking  well  nour- 
ished and  cheerful,  wearing  a  comfortable  new  civilian 
suit,  was  emerging  from  a  smoke-belching  factory  and 
waving  gaily  in  the  air  a  handful  of  twenty-mark  notes. 
Under  the  picture  ran  the  device:  "DON'T  GO  TO  BERLIN! 
There  every  one  is  hungry  and  you  will  find  no  work.  In- 
stead, go  to  the  nearest  government  employment  office" — 
the  address  of  the  most  convenient  being  added. 

Despite  this  and  many  similar  efforts  on  the  part  of  the 
authorities  and  private  agencies,  people  kept  crowding  into 
the  capital.  Not  even  a  personal  appeal  from  his  new 
"  Reichspresident "  Ebert  to  the  ordinarily  laborious  and 
persistent  German  to  remain  at  home  and  keep  at  work, 
rather  than  to  try  to  better  his  lot  by  this  vain  pilgrimage, 
succeeded  in  shutting  off  the  Berlinward  stream  of  dis- 
contented humanity.  War  and  social  disorders  seem 
always  to  bring  this  influx  into  the  national  metropolis,  the 
world  over.  It  is  man's  nature  to  wander  in  search  of 
happiness  when  he  is  not  happy,  seldom  recognizing  that  he 
is  -carrying  his  unhappiness  with  him  and  that  it  is  but 

112 


THE  HEART  OF  THE  HUNGRY  EMPIRE 

slightly  dependent  upon  the  particular  spot  he  inhabits. 
In  this  case  the  general  misery  was  largely  due  to  the 
gnawings  of  hunger,  and  surely  Berlin,  in  the  year  of  grace 
1919,  was  the  last  place  in  all  Germany  in  which  to  seek 
alleviation  from  that  particular  misfortune.  Yet  the  quest 
of  the  rainbow  end  went  hopefully  on,  until  the  tenements 
of  the  capital  were  gorged  with  famished  provincials  and  her 
newspapers  teemed  with  offers  of  substantial  rewards  to 
any  one  who  would  furnish  information  of  rooms,  apart- 
ments, or  dwelling-houses  for  rent. 

That  Berlin  was  hungry  was  all  too  evident,  so  patent, 
in  fact,  that  I  feel  it  my  duty  to  set  down  in  a  place  apart 
the  gruesome  details  of  famine  and  warn  the  reader  to 
peruse  them  only  in  the  presence  of  a  full-course  dinner. 
But  the  overcrowding  was  at  first  glance  less  apparent. 
Indeed,  a  superficial  glimpse  of  the  heart  of  Prussianism 
showed  it  surprisingly  like  what  it  had  been  a  decade  before. 
The  great  outdoor  essentials  were  virtually  unaltered. 
Only  as  one  amassed  bit  by  bit  into  a  convincing  whole 
the  minor  evidences  of  change,  as  an  experienced  lawyer 
pieces  together  the  scattered  threads  of  circumstantial 
proof,  did  one  reach  the  conclusion  that  Berlin  was  no 
longer  what  she  used  to  be.  Her  great  arteries  of  suburban 
railways,  her  elevated  and  underground,  pulsated  regularly, 
without  even  that  clogging  of  circulation  that  threatened 
the  civic  health  of  her  great  temperamental  rival  to  the 
west.  Her  shops  and  business  houses  seemed,  except  in 
one  particular,  well  stocked  and  prosperous;  her  sources 
of  amusement  were  many  and  well  patronized.  Her  street 
throngs  certainly  were  not  shabby  in  appearance  and  they 
showed  no  outward  signs  of  leading  a  hampered  existence. 
True,  they  were  unusually  gaunt-featured — but  here  we  are 
encroaching  on  ground  to  be  explored  under  more  propitious 
alimentary  circumstances. 

Of  the  revolution,  real  or  feigned,  through  which  it  had 

"3 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

recently  passed,  the  city  bore  surprisingly  few  scars.  Three 
or  four  government  buildings  were  pockmarked  with  bullet- 
holes  that  carried  the  mind  back  to  "election"  days  in  the 
capitals  of  tropical  America;  over  in  Alexanderplatz  the 
bricks  and  stones  flaunted  a  goodly  number  of  shrapnel 
and  machine-gun  wounds.  But  that  was  all,  or  almost  all, 
the  proof  of  violence  that  remained.  The  palaces  of  the 
late  Kaiser  stood  like  abandoned  warehouses ;  the  Reichstag 
building  was  cold  and  silent,  testifying  to  a  change  of  venue 
for  the  government  on  trial,  if  not  of  regime.  Yet  it  could 
not,  after  all,  have  been  much  of  a  "revolution  "  that  had  left 
unscathed  those  thirty-two  immense  and  sometimes  pot- 
bellied images  of  the  noble  Hohenzollerns,  elaborately 
carved  in  stone,  which  still  oppressed  the  stroller  along 
the  Sieges  Allee  in  the  otherwise  pleasant  Tiergarten.  The 
massive  wooden  Hindenburg  at  the  end  of  it,  a  veritable 
personification  of  brute  strength  from  cropped  head  to 
well-planted  feet,  stared  down  upon  puny  mankind  as  of 
yore,  though,  to  be  sure,  he  looked  rather  neglected;  the 
nailing  had  never  been  completed  and  the  rare  visitors 
passed  him  by  now  without  any  attempt  to  hammer  home 
their  homage.  Farther  on  that  other  man  of  iron  gazed 
away  across  the  esplanade  as  if  he  saw  nothing  in  this 
temporary  abandonment  of  his  principles  to  cause  serious 
misgivings. 

But  perhaps  all  this  will  in  time  be  swept  away,  for 
there  were  signs  pointing  in  that  direction.  The  city 
council  of  Berlin  had  already  decreed  that  all  pictures 
and  statues  of  the  Hohenzollerns,  "especially  those  of  the 
deposed  Kaiser,"  must  be  removed  from  the  public  halls 
and  schoolrooms.  That  of  itself  would  constitute  a  decided 
change  in  the  capital.  In  these  first  days  of  May  several 
hundred  busts  and  countless  likenesses  of  Wilhelm  II  and 
his  family  had  been  banished  to  the  cellars  of  municipal 
buildings,  not,  be  it  noted,  far  enough  away  to  make  restora- 

114 


THE  HEART  OF  THE  HUNGRY  EMPIRE 

tion  difficult.  "Among  the  busts,"  said  one  of  the  local 
papers,  "are  some  of  real  artistic  value" — I  cannot,  of 
course,  vouch  for  the  esthetic  sense  of  the  editor — "as  for 
example  the  marble  ones  of  Kaiser  Wilhelm  I  and  of  Kaiser 
Friedrich  III,  which  for  many  years  have  adorned  the 
meeting-place  of  the  Municipal  Council  itself."  For  all 
this  there  was  no  lack  of  graven  images  of  the  discredited 
War  Lord  and  his  tribe  still  on  exhibition;  the  portraits 
"adorning"  private  residences  alone  could  have  filled 
many  more  cellars.  It  would  be  difficult  to  eradicate  in  a 
few  brief  months  a  trade-mark  which  had  been  stamped 
into  every  article  of  common  or  uncommon  use. 

In  return  for  these  artistic  losses  the  city  was  taking 
on  new  decorations,  in  the  form  of  placards  and  posters 
unknown  in  kaiserly  days.  To  begin  with,  there  were  the 
violent  representations  in  color  of  what  the  Bolshevists 
were  alleged  to  perpetrate  on  the  civil  population  that  fell 
under  their  bloody  misrule,  which  stared  from  every  con- 
spicuous wall  unprotected  by  the  stern  announcement 
that  bill-posting  was  verboten.  These  all  ended  with  an 
appeal  for  volunteers  and  money  to  halt  "the  menace  that 
is  already  knocking  at  the  eastern  gates  of  the  Fatherland." 
Then  there  were  the  more  direct  enticements  to  recruits  for 
newly  formed  Freicorps — "the  protective  home  guard," 
their  authors  called  it — usually  named  for  the  officer  whose 
signature  as  commander  appeared  at  the  bottom  of  the 
poster.  Even  the  newspapers  carried  full-page  advertise- 
ments setting  forth  the  advantages  of  enrolling  in  the  inde- 
pendent battalion  of  Major  B or  the  splendid  regiment 

of  Colonel  S ,  a  far  cry  indeed  from  the  days  of  univer- 
sal compulsory  service.  "If  you  will  join  my  company," 
ran  these  glowing  promises,  after  long-winded  appeals  to 
patriotism,  "you  will  be  commanded  by  experienced  officers, 
such  as  the  undersigned,  and  you  will  be  lodged,  fed,  and 
well  paid  by  the  government.  What  better  occupation 
9  115 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

can  you  find?"  These  were  the  freiwillige  bands  that  com- 
posed the  German  army  of  1919,  semi-independent  groups, 
loosely  disciplined,  and  bearing  the  name  of  some  officer 
of  the  old  regime.  They  may  not  constitute  an  overpower- 
ing force,  but  there  is  always  the  possibility  that  some 
man  of  magnetism  and  Napoleonic  ambition  may  gather 
them  all  together  and  become  a  military  dictator.  Besides, 
there  is  still  the  trickery  of  militaristic  Germany  to  be 
reckoned  with,  genius  for  subterfuge  that  will  cover  up 
real  training  under  the  pretense  of  police  forces,  of  turn- 
vereins  and  of  "athletic  unions." 

Thus  far  these  omnipresent  appeals  did  not  seem  to  have 
met  with  overwhelming  success.  The  soldiers  guarding 
Berlin  were  virtually  all  boys  of  twenty  or  under;  the  older 
men  were  probably  "fed  up  with  it."  Nor  did  the  insolent 
Prussian  officer  of  former  days  any  longer  lord  it  over  the 
civilian  population.  He  had  laid  aside  his  saber  and  in 
most  cases  his  uniform,  and  perhaps  felt  safer  in  his  semi- 
disguise  of  "civies"  as  he  mingled  with  the  throng.  Mili- 
tary automobiles  carrying  stiff-necked  generals  or  haughty 
civilians  in  silk  hats  still  occasionally  blasted  their  way 
down  Unter  den  Linden  as  commandingly  as  ever  did  the 
Kaiser,  but  they  were  wont  to  halt  and  grow  very  quiet 
when  the  plebeian  herd  became  dense  enough  to  demand 
its  right  of  way. 

Before  we  leave  the  subject  of  posters,  however,  let  us 
take  a  glimpse  at  those  appealing  for  aid  to  the  Kriegs 
und  Zivilgefangenen  which  inundated  the  city.  The 
picture  showed  a  group  of  German  prisoners,  still  in  their 
red-banded  caps  and  in  full  uniform — as  if  the  ravages  of 
time  and  their  captors  had  not  so  much  as  spotted  a  shoulder- 
strap — peering  sadly  out  through  a  wire  barricade.  It 
was  plain  to  see  that  some  German  at  home  had  posed  for 
the  artist,  the  beings  he  depicted  were  so  pitifully  gaunt 
and  hungry  in  appearance.  I  have  seen  many  thousand 

116 


THE  HEART  OF  THE  HUNGRY  EMPIRE 

German  prisoners  in  France,  and  I  cannot  recall  one  who 
did  not  look  far  better  nourished  than  his  fellow-country- 
men beyond  the  Rhine,  more  full  of  health,  in  fact,  than  the 
civilian  population  about  the  detention  camps.  They  may 
regret  leaving  comparative  abundance  for  their  hungry 
Fatherland,  when  the  day  of  exodus  finally  comes.  But 
the  Germans  at  home  were  greatly  wrought  up  about  their 
eight  hundred  thousand  prisoners.  Many  had  convinced 
themselves  that  they  would  never  be  returned ;  the  general 
impression  of  their  sad  lot  brought  continuous  contributions 
to  the  boys  and  girls  who  rattled  money-cans  in  the  faces 
of  passers-by,  even  those  who  wore  an  Allied  uniform,  all 
over  Berlin.  Stories  of  the  mistreatment  of  prisoners  were 
quite  as  current  and  fully  as  heartrending  in  Germany  as 
they  were  on  the  other  side  of  the  battle-line.  Apparently 
captives  are  always  mishandled — by  the  enemy,  and  too 
well  treated  on  the  side  of  the  speaker,  a  phenomenon  even 
of  our  own  Civil  War.  I  have  no  personal  knowledge  of  the 
lot  of  Allied  prisoners  of  war  in  Germany,  but  this  much  is 
certain  of  those  wearing  the  field  gray — that  the  French 
neglected  them  both  as  to  food  and  work;  that  the  British 
treated  them  fairly  in  both  matters,  and  that  the  Americans 
overfed  and  underworked  them.  But  it  was  a  hopeless 
task  to  try  to  convince  their  fellow-countrymen  that  they 
were  not  one  and  all  suffering  daily  the  tortures  of  the 
damned. 

Perhaps  the  greatest  surprise  that  Berlin  had  in  store 
for  me  was  the  complete  safety  which  her  recent  enemies 
enjoyed  there.  With  German  delegates  to  the  Peace 
Conference  closely  guarded  behind  barbed  wire  in  Ver- 
sailles, and  German  correspondents  forbidden  even  to  talk 
to  the  incensed  crowds  that  gathered  along  those  barriers, 
it  was  astounding  to  find  that  American  and  Allied  officers 
and  men,  in  full  uniform,  wandered  freely  about  the  Prussian 
capital  at  all  hours.  Doughboys  were  quite  as  much  at 

117 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

home  along  Unter  den  Linden  as  if  they  had  been  strolling 
down  Main  Street  in  Des  Moines.  Young  Germans  in 
iron  hats  guarded  the  entrance  to  the  princely  Adlon, 
housing  the  various  enemy  missions,  but  any  one  who  chose 
passed  freely  in  or  out,  whatever  his  nationality,  his  busi- 
ness or  lack  thereof,  or  his  garb.  Olive  drab  attracted  no 
more  attention  in  Berlin  than  it  did  in  Coblenz.  German 
chauffeurs  drove  poilus  and  their  officers  about  the  streets 
as  nonchalantly  as  if  they  had  been  taxi-drivers  in  Paris. 
To  be  sure,  most  uniformed  visitors  stuck  rather  closely 
to  the  center  of  town,  but  that  was  due  either  to  false 
impressions  of  danger  or  to  lack  of  curiosity — and  perhaps 
also  to  the  dread  of  getting  out  of  touch  with  their  own 
food-supply.  For  as  a  matter  of  experience  they  were  fully 
as  safe  in  Berlin  as  in  Paris  or  New  York — possibly  a  trifle 
more  so — they  seemed  to  run  less  risk  of  being  separated, 
legally  or  forcibly,  from  their  possessions.  The  hair- 
raising  tales  which  correspondents  poured  out  over  the 
wires  via  Copenhagen  were  chiefly  instigated  by  their 
clamoring  editors  and  readers  at  home.  Let  a  few  random 
shots  be  fired  somewhere  in  the  city  and  the  scribes  were 
at  ease  for  another  day — and  the  world  gasped  once  more 
at  the  bloody  anarchy  reigning  in  Berlin,  while  the  stodgy 
Berliner  went  on  about  his  business,  totally  oblivious  of  the 
battle  that  was  supposed  to  be  seething  about  him. 

In  January,  1919,  a  group  of  American  officers  entered  one 
of  the  principal  restaurants  of  Berlin  and  ordered  dinner. 
At  that  date  our  olive  drab  was  rare  enough  in  the  capital 
to  attract  general  attention.  A  civilian  at  a  neighboring 
table,  somewhat  the  worse  for  bottled  animosity,  gave  vent 
to  his  wrath  at  sight  of  the  visitors.  Having  no  desire  to 
precipitate  a  scene,  they  rose  to  leave.  Several  German 
officers  sprang  to  their  feet  and  begged  them  to  remain, 
assuring  them  that  the  disturber  would  be  silenced  or 
ejected.  The  Americans  declined  to  stay,  whereupon  the 

118 


THE   HEART  OF  THE  HUNGRY  EMPIRE 

ranking  German  apologized  for  the  unseemly  conduct  of  ar> 
ill-bred  fellow-countryman  and  invited  the  group  to  be  his 
guests  there  the  following  evening. 

Now  I  must  take  issue  with  most  American  travelers  in 
Germany  during  the  armistice  that  the  general  attitude 
of  courtesy  was  either  pretense,  bidding  for  favor,  or  "propa- 
ganda" directed  by  those  higher  up.  In  the  first  place, 
a  great  many  Germans  did  not  at  that  date  admit  that  the 
upstarts  who  had  suddenly  risen  to  power  were  capable 
of  directing  their  personal  conduct.  Moreover,  I  have 
met  scores  of  persons  who  were  neither  astute  enough  nor 
closely  enough  in  touch  with  those  outlining  national 
policies  to  take  part  in  any  concerted  plan  to  curry  favor 
with  their  conquerors.  I  have,  furthermore,  often  success- 
fully posed  as  a  German  or  as  the  subject  of  a  friendly  or 
neutral  power,  and  have  found  the  attitude  toward  their 
enemies  not  one  whit  different  under  those  circumstances 
than  when  they  were  knowingly  speaking  to  an  enemy. 

There  were  undoubtedly  many  who  deliberately  sought 
to  gain  advantage  by  wearing  a  mask  of  friendliness;  but 
there  were  fully  as  many  who  declined  to  depart  from  their 
customary  politeness,  whatever  the  provocation. 

Two  national  characteristics  which  revolution  had  not 
greatly  altered  were  the  habit  of  commanding  rather  than 
requesting  and  of  looking  to  the  government  to  take  a 
paternal  attitude  toward  its  subjects.  The  stern  Verboten 
still  stared  down  upon  the  masses  at  every  corner  and  angle. 
It  reminded  one  of  the  sign  in  some  of  our  rougher  Western 
towns  bearing  the  information  that  "Gentlemen  will  not 
spit  on  the  floor;  others  must  not,"  and  carrying  the  impli- 
cation that  the  populace  cannot  be  intrusted  to  its  own 
instincts  for  decency.  If  only  the  German  could  learn 
the  value  of  moral  suasion,  the  often  greater  effectiveness 
of  a  "Please"  than  of  an  iron-fisted  "Don't"!  Perhaps 
it  would  require  a  new  viewpoint  toward  life  to  give  full 

119 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

strength  to  the  gentler  form  among  a  people  *ong  trained 
to  listen  only  to  the  sterner  admonition.  The  great  trouble 
with  the  verboten  attitude  is  that  if  those  in  command  ac- 
cidentally overlook  verboting  something,  people  are  almost 
certain  to  do  it.  Their  atrophied  sense  of  right  and  wrong 
gives  them  no  gage  of  personal  conduct.  Then  there  is 
always  the  man  to  be  reckoned  with  who  does  a  thing 
simply  because  it  is  verboten — though  he  is  rarely  a  German. 
It  is  in  keeping  with  this  commanding  manner  that  the 
ruling  class  fails  to  give  the  rank  and  file  credit  for  common 
horse  sense.  Instead  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  custom  of  trusting 
the  individual  to  take  care  of  himself,  German  paternalism 
flashes  constantly  in  his  face  signs  and  placards  proffering 
officious  advice  on  every  conceivable  subject.  He  is  warned 
to  stamp  his  letters  before  mailing  them,  to  avoid  draughts 
if  he  would  keep  his  health;  he  is  verboten  to  step  off  a  tram- 
car  in  motion,  lest  he  break  his  precious  neck,  and  so  on 
through  all  the  possibilities  of  earthly  existence,  until  any 
but  a  German  would  feel  like  the  victim  of  one  of  those 
motherly  women  whose  extreme  solicitude  becomes  in 
practice  a  constant  nagging.  The  Teuton,  however,  seems 
to  like  it,  and  he  grows  so  accustomed  to  receiving  or  impart- 
ing information  by  means  of  placards  that  his  very  shop- 
windows  are  ridiculously  littered  with  them.  Here  an  en- 
graved card  solemnly  announces,  "This  is  a  suit  of  clothes"; 
there  another  asserts — more  or  less  truthfully — "Cigars — 
to  smoke."  One  comes  to  the  point  of  wondering  whether 
the  German  does  not  need  most  of  all  to  be  let  alone  until 
he  learns  to  take  care  of  himself  and  to  behave  of  his  own 
free  will.  Then  he  might  in  time  recognize  that  liberty 
is  objective  as  well  as  subjective;  that  there  is  true  philoso- 
phy in  the  Anglo-Saxon  contention  that  "every  man's 
home  is  his  castle."  Perhaps  he  is  already  on  his  way 
to  that  goal.  There  were  promising  signs  that  Germany 
is  growing  less  streng  than  she  used  to  be,  more  easy-going, 

120 


THE  HEART  OF  THE  HUNGRY  EMPIRE 

more  human — unless  what  seemed  to  be  that  was  the 
merely  temporary  apathy  of  under-nourishment. 

The  war  had  made  fewer  changes  in  the  public  and  busi- 
ness world  of  the  Fatherland  than  in  Allied  countries. 
Pariserplatz  and  Franzosischerstrasse  retained  their  names. 
Down  in  Munich  the  finest  park  was  still  the  Englische 
Garten.  Most  American  stocks  were  quoted  in  the  news- 
papers. One  might  still  get  one's  mail — if  any  arrived — 
through  the  American  Express  Company,  though  its  bank- 
ing business  was  in  abeyance.  The  repertoire  of  the  once 
Royal  Opera  included  the  works  of  Allied  composers,  given 
only  in  German,  to  be  sure,  but  that  was  the  custom  even 
before  the  war.  Shopkeepers  of  the  tourist-baiting  class 
spoke  English  or  French  on  the  slightest  provocation — 
often  with  provoking  insistence.  I  found  myself  suddenly 
in  need  of  business  cards  with  which  to  impress  the  natives, 
and  the  first  printing-shop  furnished  them  within  three 
hours.  When  I  returned  to  the  capital  from  one  of  my 
jaunts  into  the  provinces  with  a  batch  of  films  that  must 
be  developed  and  delivered  that  same  evening,  the  seem- 
ingly impossible  was  accomplished.  I  suggested  that  I 
carry  them  off  wet,  directly  after  the  hypo  bath,  washing 
and  drying  them  in  my  hotel  room  in  time  to  catch  a  train 
at  dawn.  Where  a  Frenchman  or  an  Italian  would  have 
thrown  up  his  hands  in  horror  at  so  unprecedented  an 
arrangement,  the  amenable  Teuton  agreed  at  once  to  the 
feasibility  of  the  scheme.  Thus  commerce  strode  aggres- 
sively on,  irrespective  of  the  customer's  nationality,  and 
with  the  customary  German  adaptability. 

Some  lines  of  business  had,  of  course,  been  hard  hit  by 
the  war.  There  was  that,  for  instance,  of  individual  trans- 
portation, public  or  private.  Now  and  then  an  iron-tired 
automobile  screamed  by  along  Unter  den  Linden,  but  though 
the  government  was  offering  machines  as  cheaply  as  two 
thousand  marks  each,  the  scarcity  and  prohibitive  price 

121 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

of  "benzine"  made  purchasers  rare.  In  the  collections  of 
dilapidated  outfits  waiting  for  fares  at  railway  stations 
and  public  squares  it  was  a  question  whether  horse,  coach- 
man, or  carriage  was  nearest  to  the  brink  of  starvation. 
The  animals  were  miserable  runts  that  were  of  no  military 
use  even  before  the  scarcity  of  fodder  reduced  them  to 
their  resemblance  to  museum  skeletons.  The  sallow-faced 
drivers  seemed  to  envy  the  beasts  the  handful  of  bran  they 
were  forced  to  grant  them  daily.  Their  vagabond  garb 
was  sadly  in  keeping  with  the  junk  on  wheels  in  which 
they  rattled  languidly  away  when  a  new  victim  succumbed 
to  their  hollow-eyed  pleading.  Most  of  Berlin  seemed  to 
prefer  to  walk,  and  that  not  merely  because  the  legal  fares 
had  recently  been  doubled.  Taxis  might  have  one  or  two 
real  rubber  tires,  aged  and  patched,  but  still  pump-upable; 
the  others  were  almost  sure  to  be  some  astonishing  sub- 
stitute which  gave  the  machine  a  resemblance  to  a  war 
victim  with  one  leg — or,  more  exactly,  to  a  three-legged  dog. 
The  most  nearly  successful  Ersatz  tires  were  iron  rims  with  a 
score  of  little  steel  springs  within  them,  yet  even  those  did 
not  make  joy-riding  popular. 

On  this  subject  of  Ersatz,  or  far-fetched  substitutes  for 
the  real  thing,  many  pages  might  be  written,  even  without 
trespassing  for  the  moment  on  the  forbidden  territory  of 
food.  The  department  stores  were  veritable  museums  of 
Ersatz  articles.  With  real  shoes  costing  about  sixty  dollars, 
and  real  clothing  running  them  a  close  race,  it  was  essential 
that  the  salesman  should  be  able  to  appease  the  wrathful 
customer  by  offering  him  "something  else — er — almost  as 
good."  The  shoe  substitutes  alone  made  the  shop-windows 
a  constant  source  of  amazement  and  interest.  Those  with 
frankly  wooden  soles  and  cloth  tops  were  offered  for  as 
little  as  seven  marks.  The  more  ambitious  contraptions, 
ranging  from  these  simple  corn-torturers  improved  with  a 
half-dozen  iron  hinges  in  the  sole  to  those  laboriously  pieced 

122 


THE  HEART  OF  THE  HUNGRY  EMPIRE 

together  out  of  scraps  of  leather  that  suggested  the  ultimate 
fate  of  the  window-straps  missing  from  railway  carriages, 
ran  the  whole  gamut  of  prices,  up  to  within  a  few  dollars 
of  the  genuine  article.  Personally,  I  have  never  seen  a 
German  in  Ersatz  footwear,  with  the  exception  of  a  few 
working  in  their  gardens.  But  on  the  theory  of  no  smoke 
without  some  fire  the  immense  stocks  displayed  all  over 
the  country  were  prima-facie  evidence  of  a  considerable 
demand.  Possibly  the  substitutes  were  reserved  for  interior 
domestic  use — fetching  styles  of  carpet  slippers.  On  the 
street  the  German  still  succeeded  somehow  in  holding  his 
sartorial  own,  perhaps  by  the  zealous  husbanding  of  his 
pre-war  wardrobe. 

Look  where  you  would  you  were  sure  to  find  some  new 
Ersatz  brazenly  staring  you  in  the  face.  Clothing,  furni- 
ture, toys,  pictures,  drugs,  tapestries,  bicycles,  tools,  hand- 
bags, string,  galoshes,  the  very  money  in  your  pocket,  were 
but  imitations  of  the  real  thing.  Examine  the  box  of 
matches  you  acquired  at  last  with  much  patience  and 
diplomacy  and  you  found  it  marked,  "Without  sulphur  and 
without  phosphorus" — a  sad  fact  that  would  soon  have 
made  itself  apparent  without  formal  announcement.  The 
wood  was  still  genuine;  thanks  to  their  scientific  forestry, 
the  Germans  have  not  yet  run  out  of  that.  But  many  of 
their  great  forests  are  thinned  out  like  the  hair  of  the  middle- 
aged  male — and  the  loss  as  cleverly  concealed.  There  has 
been  much  Teutonic  boasting  on  this  subject  of  Ersatz, 
but  since  the  armistice,  at  least,  it  had  changed  to  wailing, 
for  even  if  he  ever  seriously  believed  otherwise  the  German 
had  discovered  that  the  vast  majority  of  his  laborious 
substitutes  did  not  substitute. 

As  we  are  carefully  avoiding  the  mention  of  food,  the 
most  grievous  source  of  annoyance  to  the  rank  and  file 
of  which  we  can  speak  here  is  the  lack  of  tobacco.  In 
contrast  with  the  rest  of  the  country  there  were  plenty 

123 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

of  cigars  in  Berlin — apparently,  until  one  found  that  the 
heaps  of  boxes  adorning  tobacconists'  windows  were  plac- 
arded "Nur  leere  Kisten,"  or  at  best  were  filled  with 
rolls  of  some  species  of  weed  that  could  not  claim  the  most 
distant  relationship  to  the  fragrant  leaf  of  Virginia.  I 
indulged  one  day,  before  I  had  found  the  open  sesame  to 
the  American  commissary,  in  one  of  the  most  promising 
of  those  mysterious  vegetables,  at  two  marks  a  throw. 
The  taste  is  with  me  yet.  American  officers  at  the  Adlon 
sometimes  ventured  to  leave  food-supplies  in  the  drawers 
of  their  desks,  but  their  cigars  they  locked  in  the  safe, 
along  with  their  secret  papers  and  real  money.  In  the 
highest-priced  restaurant  of  Berlin  the  shout  of,  "Waiter, 
bring  two  cigarettes!"  was  sure  to  focus  all  eyes  on  the 
prosperous  individual  who  could  still  subject  his  fortune 
to  such  extravagance.  Here  and  there  along  Friedrich- 
strasse  hawkers  assailed  passers-by  with  raucous  cries  of 
"English  and  American  tobacco!"  Which  proved  not  only 
that  the  German  had  lost  all  national  feeling  on  this  pain- 
ful subject,  but  that  the  British  Tommy  and  the  American 
doughboy  had  brought  with  them  some  of  the  tricks  they 
had  learned  in  France. 

These  street-corner  venders,  not  merely  of  the  only  real 
tobacco  to  be  publicly  had  in  Berlin,  but  of  newspapers, 
post-cards,  and  the  like,  were  more  apt  than  not  to  be 
ex-soldiers  in  field  gray,  sometimes  as  high  in  rank  as  Feld- 
webels.  Many  others  struggled  for  livelihood  by  wandering 
like  gipsies  from  one  cheap  cafe  to  another,  playing  some 
form  of  musical  instrument  and  taking  up  collections  from 
the  clients,  often  with  abashed  faces.  Which  brings  us  to 
the  question  of  gaiety  in  Berlin.  Newspapers,  posters, 
and  blazing  electric  signs  called  constant  attention  to  count- 
less cafe,  cabaret,  cinema,  and  theater  entertainments. 
Every  one  of  them  I  visited  was  well  filled,  if  not  over- 
crowded. On  the  whole  they  were  distinctly  immoral 

124 


THE  HEART  OF  THE  HUNGRY  EMPIRE 

in  tone  or  suggestion.  Berlin  seems  to  be  running  more 
and  more  to  this  sort  of  thing.  There  is  something  amiss 
in  the  country  whose  chief  newspaper  carries  the  conspicu- 
ous announcement:  "NAKEDNESS!  Fine  artistic  postals 
now  ready  to  be  delivered  to  the  trade,"  or  with  the  city 
where  scores  of  street-corners  are  adorned  by  crowds  of  men 
huddled  around  a  sneaking  vender  of  indecent  pictures. 
Similar  scenes  offend  the  eye  in  most  large  cities  the  world 
over,  of  course,  but  something  seemed  to  suggest  that 
Berlin  was  unusually  given  to  this  traffic.  The  French 
claim  that  theirs  is  at  heart  the  moral  race  and  that  the 
Boche  is  a  leader  in  immorality,  and  they  cite  many  in- 
stances of  prisoners  found  in  possession  of  disgusting  photo- 
graphs as  one  of  the  proofs  of  their  contention.  Peephole 
shows  were  not  the  least  popular  of  the  Berliner's  evening 
amusements.  His  streets,  however,  were  far  freer  of  the 
painted  stalkers  by  night  than  those  of  Paris,  and  the  out- 
casts less  aggressive  in  their  tactics.  Gambling,  and  with 
it  the  police  corruption  that  seems  to  batten  best  under  the 
democratic  form  of  government,  was  reported  to  be  growing 
apace,  with  new  "clubs"  springing  up  nightly.  Under  the 
monarchy  these  were  by  no  means  lacking,  but  they  were 
more  "select,"  more  exclusive — in  other  words,  less  demo- 
cratic. Even  the  government  had  taken  on  a  Spanish 
characteristic  in  this  respect  and  countenanced  a  public 
lottery,  ostensibly,  at  least,  for  the  benefit  of  "sucklings." 

At  the  middle-class  theaters  the  same  rarely  musical 
and  never  comic  inanities  that  hamper  the  advancement 
of  histrionic  art  in  other  countries  still  held  sway,  with 
perhaps  an  increasing  tendency  toward  the  risqu£.  The 
crowd  roared  as  of  yore,  munched  its  black-bread  sand- 
wiches between  the  acts,  and  seemed  for  the  moment  highly 
satisfied  with  life.  In  contrast  there  were  always  seats  to  be 
had  at  the  performances  of  literary  merit  and  at  the  opera, 
though  the  war  does  not  seem  to  have  subjected  them  to 

125 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

any  special  hardships.  The  investment  of  a  ticket  at  the 
house  of  song  brought  high  interest — particularly  to  the 
foreigner,  for  the  best  orchestra  seats  were  still  eight  marks 
at  matinees  and  twelve  in  the  evening,  a  mere  sixty  cents  or 
a  dollar  at  the  armistice  rate  of  exchange.  I  remember 
with  especial  pleasure  excellent  performances  of  "Eurydice" 
and  of  "Martha."  The  audience  was  a  plain,  bourgeois 
gathering,  with  evening  dress  as  lacking  as  "roughnecks." 
In  the  foyer  buffet,  in  contrast  to  Paris,  prices  were 
exceedingly  reasonable,  but  the  most  popular  offerings, 
next  to  the  watery  beer,  were  plates  of  potatoes,  bologna, 
pickled  fish,  and  hard-boiled  eggs,  for,  though  I  should  not 
mention  it  here,  the  German  theater-goer  of  these  days 
is  as  constantly  munching  as  an  Arab.  In  the  gorgeous 
Kaiser's  box  sat  one  lone  lieutenant  and  his  wife,  while  a 
cold-eyed  old  retainer  in  livery  kept  guard  outside  the 
locked  door  as  if  he  were  still  holding  the  place  for  his 
beloved  emperor. 

Though  ostensibly  the  same,  German  prices  were  vastly 
lower  for  visitors  than  for  the  native  residents.  For  the 
first  time  I  had  something  of  the  sensation  of  being  a 
millionaire — cost  was  of  slight  importance.  The  marks  I 
spent  in  Germany  I  bought  at  an  average  of  two  for  fifteen 
cents;  had  I  delayed  longer  in  exchanging  I  might  have 
had  them  still  cheaper.  In  some  lines,  notably  in  that 
we  are  for  the  moment  avoiding,  prices,  of  course,  had 
increased  accordingly,  sometimes  outdistancing  the  advan- 
tages of  the  low  rate  of  exchange.  But  the  rank  and  file 
still  clung  to  the  old  standards;  it  was  a  hopeless  task  to 
try  to  make  the  man  in  the  street  understand  that  the 
mark  was  no  longer  a  mark.  He  went  so  far  as  to  accuse 
the  American  government  of  profiteering,  because  the 
bacon  it  was  indirectly  furnishing  him  cost  7.50  marks 
a  pound,  which  to  him  represented,  not  fifty-seven  cents, 
but  nearly  two  dollars.  The  net  result  of  this  drop  in 

126 


THE  HEART  OF  THE  HUNGRY  EMPIRE 

mark  value  was  that  the  populace  was  several  degrees 
nearer  indigence.  Those  who  could  spend  money  freely 
were  of  three  classes — foreigners,  war  profiteers,  and  those 
who  derived  their  nourishment,  directly  or  indirectly, 
at  the  public  teat.  Not,  of  course,  that  even  those  spent 
real  money.  There  was  not  a  penny  of  real  money  in 
circulation  in  all  Germany.  Gold,  silver,  and  copper  had 
all  long  since  gone  the  way  of  other  genuine  articles  in  war- 
time Germany,  and  in  their  place  had  come  Ersatz  money. 
Pewter  coins  did  service  in  the  smallest  denominations; 
from  a  half -mark  upward  there  were  only  "shin-plasters" 
of  varying  degrees  of  raggedness,  the  smaller  bills  a  constant 
annoyance  because,  like  most  of  the  pewter  coins,  they  were 
of  value  only  in  the  vicinity  of  the  municipality  or  chamber 
of  commerce  that  issued  them.  Even  the  larger  notes  of 
the  Reichsbank  were  precarious  holdings  that  required  the 
constant  vigilance  of  the  owner,  lest  he  wake  up  some  morn- 
ing to  find  that  they  had  been  decreed  into  worthless  paper. 
But  I  am  getting  far  ahead  of  my  story.  Long  before 
I  began  to  peer  beneath  the  surface  of  Berlin  I  had  to  face 
the  problem  of  legalizing  even  my  superficial  existence  there. 
On  the  very  morning  after  my  arrival  I  hastened  to  grim- 
sounding  Wilhelmstrasse,  uncertain  whether  my  next  move 
would  be  toward  some  dank  underground  dungeon  or  merely 
a  swift  return  to  the  Dutch  border.  The  awe-inspiring 
Foreign  Office  consisted  of  several  adult  school-boys  and  the 
bureaucrat-minded  underlings  of  the  old  regime.  A  Rhodes 
scholar,  who  spoke  English  somewhat  better  than  I,  greeted 
my  entrance  with  a  formal  heartiness,  thanked  me  for 
adding  my  services  to  the  growing  band  that  was  attempting 
to  tell  a  long-deceived  world  the  truth  about  Germany,  and 
dictated  an  Ausweis  which,  in  the  name  of  the  Foreign 
Office  backed  by  all  the  authority  of  the  new  national 
government,  gave  me  permission  to  go  when  and  where  I 
chose  within  the  Empire,  and  forbade  any  one,  large  or 

127 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

small,  to  put  any  difficulties  whatever  in  my  way.  Like 
a  sea  monster  killed  at  the  body,  but  with  its  tentacles 
still  full  of  their  poisoning  black  fluid,  Wilhelmstrasse 
seemed  to  have  become  innocuous  at  home  long  before  its 
antennae,  such  as  the  dreadful  Herr  Maltzen  at  The  Hague, 
had  lost  their  sting. 

If  it  had  been  a  great  relief  to  see  the  eyes  of  passers-by 
fade  inattentively  away  at  sight  of  me  in  my  civilian  garb, 
after  two  years  of  being  stared  at  in  uniform,  it  was  doubly 
pleasant  to  know  that  not  even  the  minions  of  the  law 
could  now  question  my  most  erratic  wandering  to  and  fro 
within  the  Fatherland.  With  my  blanket  Ausweis  I  was 
not  even  required  to  report  to  the  police  upon  my  arrival 
in  a  new  community,  the  Polizeiliche  Anmeldung  that  is 
one  of  the  banes  of  German  existence.  I  was,  of  course, 
still  expected  to  fill  out  the  regulation  blank  at  each 
hotel  or  lodging-house  I  occupied,  but  this  was  a  far  less 
troublesome  formality  than  the  almost  daily  quest  for, 
and  standing  in  line  at,  police  stations  would  have  been. 
These  hotel  forms  were  virtually  uniform  throughout  the 
Empire.  They  demanded  the  following  information  of 
each  prospective  guest:  Day  of  arrival;  given  and  family 
name;  single,  married,  or  widowed;  profession;  day, 
month,  year,  town,  county,  and  land  of  birth;  legal  resi- 
dence, with  street  and  number;  citizenship  (in  German  the 
word  is  Staatsangehorigkeit,  which  sounds  much  more 
like  "Property  of  what  government?");  place  of  last  stay, 
with  full  address;  proposed  length  of  present  stay;  whether 
or  not  the  registering  guest  had  ever  been  in  that  particular 
city  or  locality  before;  if  so,  when,  why,  and  how  long,  and 
residence  while  there.  But  under  the  new  democracy 
hotelkeepers  had  grown  somewhat  more  easy-going  than 
in  years  gone  by,  and  their  exactions  in  this  respect  never 
became  burdensome. 

It  was  soon  evident  that  the  man  in  the  street  commonly 

128 


THE  HEART  OF  THE  HUNGRY  EMPIRE 

took  me  for  a  German.  In  Berlin  I  was  frequently  appealed 
to  for  directions  or  local  information,  not  to  mention  the 
requests  for  financial  assistance.  To  my  surprise,  my 
hearers  seldom  showed  evidence  of  detecting  a  foreign 
accent,  particularly  when  I  spoke  with  deliberate  care. 
Even  then  I  was  usually  considered  a  German  from  another 
province,  sometimes  a  Dane,  a  Hollander,  or  a  Scandina- 
vian. Now  and  again  I  assumed  a  pose  out  of  mere  curios- 
ity, and  often  "got  away  with  it."  "You  are  from " 

(the  next  town)?  was  a  frequent  query,  with  a  tinge  of 
doubt  in  the  tone.  "No,  I  am  from  Mechlenburg" — 
or  some  other  distant  corner  of  Germany,  I  sometimes 
answered;  to  which  the  response  was  most  likely  to  be, 
"Ah  yes,  I  noticed  that  in  your  speech."  Now  and  again 
I  let  a  self-complacent  inquirer  answer  for  me,  as  was 
the  case  with  a  know-it-all  waiter  in  a  Berlin  dining-room, 
who  proved  his  infallible  ability  to  "size  up  "  guests  with  the 
following  cocksure  assumptions,  which  he  solemnly  set 
down  in  his  food- ticket  register:  "Sie  sind  Hollander, 
nicht?"  "Jawohl."  "Kaufmann?"  "Jawohl."  "Aus 
Amsterdam?"  "Jawohl"  "  Unverheiratet? "  "Jawohl" 
and  so  on  to  the  end  of  the  list.  It  is  never  good  policy  to 
peeve  a  man  by  showing  him  up  in  public.  During  my 
first  few  days  in  unoccupied  Germany  I  fancied  it  the 
part  of  wisdom  to  at  least  passively  disguise  my  nationality, 
but  the  notion  soon  proved  ridiculous,  and  from  then  on, 
with  only  exceptions  enough  to  test  certain  impressions, 
I  went  out  of  my  way  to  announce  my  real  citizenship 
among  all  classes  and  under  all  circumstances. 

You  can  learn  much  of  a  country  by  reading  its  "Want 
Ads."  Thus  the  discovery  that  the  most  respectable 
newspaper  of  Rio  de  Janeiro  runs  scores  of  notices  of  "Fe- 
male Companion  Wanted,"  or  "Young  Lady  Desires  Pro- 
tector," quickly  orientates  the  moral  viewpoint  in  Brazil. 

In  Berlin  under  the  armistice  the  last  pages  of  the  daily 

129 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

journals  gave  a  more  exact  cross-section  of  local  conditions 
than  the  more  intentional  news  columns.  There  were,  of 
course,  countless  pleas  for  labor  of  any  description,  the 
majority  by  ex-soldiers.  Then  came  offers  to  sell  or  ex- 
change all  manner  of  wearing  apparel,  "A  REAL  SILK 
HAT,  still  in  good  condition";  "A  black  suit  of  real  peace- 
time cloth";  "A  second-hand  pair  of  boots  or  shoes,  such  a 
size,  of  REAL  LEATHER!"  "Four  dress  shirts,  NO  WAR 
WARES,  will  be  exchanged  for  a  working-man's  blouse 
and  jumper,"  was  followed  by  the  enticement  (here, 
no  doubt,  was  the  trail  of  the  war  profiteer),  "A  pair  of 
COWHIDE  boots  will  be  swapped  for  a  Dachshund  of 
established  pedigree."  Farther  down  were  extraordinary 
opportunities  to  buy  Leberwurst,  Blutwurst,  Jagdwurst, 
Bruhwurtchen,  and  a  host  of  other  appetizing  garbage, 
without  meat-tickets.  But  the  most  persistent  advertisers 
were  those  bent  on  recouping  their  fortunes  by  marrying 
money.  It  is  strange  if  any  new  war  millionaire  in  Germany 
has  not  had  his  opportunity  to  link  his  family  with  that  of 
some  impoverished  one  of  noble  lineage.  In  a  single  page 
of  the  Berliner  Tageblatt,  which  carries  about  one-tenth 
the  type  of  the  same  space  in  our  own  metropolitan  dailies, 
there  were  eighty-seven  offers  of  marriage,  some  of  them 
double  or  more,  bringing  the  total  up  to  at  least  one  hundred. 
Many  of  them  were  efforts,  often  more  pathetic  than 
amusing,  by  small  merchants  or  tradesmen,  just  returned 
from  five  years  in  uniform,  to  find  mates  who  would  be  of 
real  assistance  in  re-establishing  their  business.  But  a 
considerable  number  aroused  amazement  that  the  wares 
offered  had  not  been  snapped  up  long  ago.  I  translate 
a  few  taken  at  random: 

MERCHANT,  38  years,  Christian,  bachelor,  idealist,  lover  of  nature 
and  sports,  fortune  of  300,000  marks,  wishes  to  meet  a  like-minded, 
agreeable  young  lady  with  corresponding  wealth  which  is  safely  invested. 
Purpose:  MARRIAGE. 

130 


THE  HEART  OF  THE  HUNGRY  EMPIRE 

FACTORY  OWNER,  Ph.D.,  Evangelical,  31,  i  meter  75,  fine  appear- 
ance, reserve  officer,  sound,  lover  of  sports,  humorous  and  musical, 
400,000  marks  property,  seeks  a  LIFE  COMPANION  of  like  gifts  and 
property  in  safe  investments. 

Intelligent  GENTLEMAN,  handsome,  splendid  appearance,  blond, 
diligent  and  successful  merchant,  winning  personality,  Jewish,  etc.  .  .  . 

Will  a  BEAUTIFUL,  prominent,  artistic,  musical,  and  property-loving 
woman  in  her  best  years  make  happy  an  old  man  (Mosaic)  of  wealth? 

This  modest  old  fellow  had  many  prototypes.  Now  and 
then  a  man,  and  the  women  always,  were  offered  by  third 
parties,  at  least  ostensibly,  half  the  insertions  beginning, 
"For  my  sister";  "For  my  daughter";  "For  my  beautiful 
niece  of  twenty-two";  "For  my  lovely  sister-in-law";  and 
so  on.  Some  looked  like  the  opportunity  of  a  lifetime : 

I  seek  for  my  house  physician,  aged  55,  a  secure  existence  with  a  good, 
motherly  woman  of  from  30  to  50.  .  .  . 

A  neat  little  BLONDE  of  19  with  some  property  seeks  gentleman 
(Jewish)  for  the  purpose  of  later  marriage.  .  .  . 

For  a  BARONESS  of  23,  orphan,  ^-MILLION  property,  later  heiress 
of  big  real  estate.  .  .  . 

If  the  demands  of  my  calling  had  not  kept  me  so  busy 
I  should  have  looked  into  this  splendid  opportunity  myself; 
or  into  the  next  one: 

Daughter  of  a  BIG  MERCHANT,  22,  ONE  MILLION  Prop- 
erty. .  .  . 

But,  after  all,  come  to  think  of  it,  what  is  a  mere  million 
marks  nowadays? 

MERCHANT'S  DAUGHTER,  24,  tall  and  elegant  appearance,  only 
child  of  one  of  the  first  Jewish  families ;  1 50,000  dowry,  later  large  inheri- 
tances. .  .  . 
10  131 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

A  young  widow  (Jewish),  28  years,  without  property,  longs  for  another 
happy  home.  .  .  . 

Some  did  not  care  how  much  they  spent  on  advertising. 
For  instance: 

I  SEEK  FOR  MY  FRIEND,  a  free-thinking  Jewess,  elegant  woman 
in  the  fifties,  looking  much  younger,  widow,  owner  of  lucrative  wholesale 
business,  a  suitable  husband  of  like  position.  The  lady  is  of  beautiful 
figure,  lovable  temperament,  highly  cultured,  distinguished,  worldly 
wise,  and  at  the  same  time  a  good  manager  and  diligent  business  woman. 
[This  last  detail  was  plainly  a  tautology,  having  already  been  stated  in 
the  ninth  word  of  the  paragraph.]  The  gentleman  should  be  a  merchant 
or  a  government  official  of  high  rank.  Chief  condition  is  good  character, 
distinguished  sentiments,  affectionate  disposition.  No  photographs,  but 
oral  interview  solicited.  Offers  addressed,  etc.  .  .  . 

This  last  vacancy  should  have  found  many  suitable 
candidates,  if  there  was  truth  in  the  violently  pink  hand- 
bills that  were  handed  out  in  the  streets  of  Berlin  during 
one  of  the  "demonstrations"  against  the  peace  terms. 
For  the  sake  of  brevity  I  give  only  its  high  lights: 

END  OF  MILITARISM 
BEGINNING  OF  JEW  RULE! 

Fifty  months  have  we  stood  at  the  Front  honorably  and  undefeated. 
Now  we  have  returned  home,  ignominiously  betrayed  by  deserters  and 
mutineers  1  We  hoped  to  find  a  free  Germany,  with  a  government  of  the 
people.  What  is  offered  us? 

A  GOVERNMENT  OF  JEWS! 

The  participation  of  the  Jews  in  the  fights  at  the  Front  was  almost 
nil.  Their  participation  in  the  new  government  has  already  reached 
80  per  cent.!  Yet  the  percentage  of  Jewish  population  in  Germany  is 
only  i ^percent.! 

OPEN  YOUR  EYES! 

COMRADES,  YOU  KNOW  THE  BLOODSUCKERS! 
COMRADES,  WHO  WENT  TO  THE  FRONT  AS  VOLUNTEERS? 

132 


THE  HEART  OF  THE  HUNGRY  EMPIRE 

WHO  SAT  OUT  THERE  MOSTLY  IN  THE  MUD?    WE! 
WHO    CROWDED    INTO    THE   WAR   SERVICES   AT   HOME? 

THE  JEWS! 
WHO    SAT    COMFORTABLY    AND    SAFELY   IN   CANTEENS 

AND  OFFICES? 
WHICH   PHYSICIANS    PROTECTED    THEIR    FELLOW-RACE 

FROM  THE  TRENCHES? 
WHO  ALWAYS  REPORTED   US  "FIT   FOR   DUTY"   THOUGH 

WE  WERE  ALL  SHOT  TO  PIECES? 

These  are  the  people  who  rule  us.  [Here  followed  a  long  list  of  names 
and  blanket  accusations.]  Even  in  the  Soldiers'  Councils  the  Jews  have 
the  big  word!  Four  long  years  these  people  hung  back  from  the  Front, 
yet  on  November  Qth  they  had  the  courage,  guns  in  hand,  to  tear  away 
from  us  soldiers  our  cockades,  our  shoulder-straps,  and  our  medals  of 
honor! 

Comrades,  we  wish  as  a  free  people  to  decide  for  ourselves  and  be 
ruled  by  men  of  OUR  race!  The  National  Assembly  must  bring  into  the 
government  only  men  of  OUR  blood  and  OUR  opinions!  Our  motto 
must  be: 

GERMANY  FOR  GERMANS! 

German  people,  rend  the  chains  of  Jewry  asunder!  Away  with  them! 
We  want  neither  Pogrom  nor  Burgerkrieg!  We  want  a  free  German  peo- 
ple, ruled  by  free  German  men!  We  will  not  be  the  slaves  of  the  Jews! 

ELECTORS 

Out  of  the  Parties  and  Societies  run  by  Jews!  Elect  no  Jews!  Elect 
also  no  baptized  Jews!  Elect  also  none  of  the  so-called  "confessionless" 
Jews!  Give  your  votes  only  to  men  of  genuine  German  blood! 

DOWN  WITH  JEWRY! 

Though  it  is  violating  the  chronological  order  of  my  tale, 
it  may  be  as  well  to  sum  up  at  once  the  attitude  of  Berlin 
upon  receipt  of  the  peace  terms.  Four  separate  times 
during  my  stay  in  Germany  I  visited  the  capital,  by  com- 
binations of  choice  and  necessity.  On  the  day  the  terms 
of  the  proposed  treaty  were  made  public  apathy  seemed 
to  be  the  chief  characteristic  of  the  populace.  If  one  must 

133 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

base  conclusions  on  visible  indications,  the  masses  were 
far  less  interested  in  the  news  from  Versailles  than  in  their 
individual  struggles  for  existence.  The  talk  one  heard 
was  not  of  treaty  terms,  but  of  food.  Not  more  than  a 
dozen  at  a  time  gathered  before  the  windows  of  the  Lokal 
Anzeiger  on  Unter  den  Linden.  They  read  the  bulletins 
deliberately,  some  shaking  their  heads,  and  strolled  on 
about  their  business  as  if  they  had  been  Americans  scanning 
the  latest  baseball  scores,  a  trifle  disappointed,  perhaps, 
that  the  home  team  had  not  won.  There  was  no  resemblance 
whatever  to  the  excited  throngs  of  Teuton  colonists  who  had 
surged  about  the  war  maps  in  Rio  de  Janeiro  during  August, 
1914.  One  could  not  but  wonder  whether  this  apathy 
had  reigned  in  Berlin  at  that  date.  Scenes  of  popular 
excitement  and  violence  had  been  prophesied,  but  for  two 
days  I  wandered  the  streets  of  the  capital,  mingling  with 
every  variety  of  group,  questioning  every  class  of  inhabitant, 
without  once  hearing  a  violent  word.  A  few  individuals 
asserted  that  their  opinion  of  America  had  been  sadly 
shocked;  one  or  two  secretaries  of  Allied  correspondents 
haughtily  resigned  their  positions.  But  the  afternoon  tea 
at  the  Adlon  showed  the  same  gathering  of  sleek,  well- 
dressed  Germans  of  both  sexes,  by  no  means  averse  to 
genial  chats  with  enemy  guests  in  or  out  of  uniform.  There 
was  no  means  of  forming  definite  conclusions  as  to  whether 
the  nation  had  been  stunned  with  the  immensity  of  the 
tragedy  that  had  befallen  it  or  whether  these  taciturn 
beings  had  some  secret  cause  for  satisfaction  hidden  away 
in  their  labyrinthine  minds. 

Later  I  was  assured  that  many  had  stayed  up  all  night, 
waiting  for  the  first  draft  of  the  terms.  Sudermann  ex- 
plained the  apparent  apathy  with,  "We  Germans  are  not 
like  the  French;  we  mourn  in  the  privacy  of  our  homes, 
but  we  do  not  show  our  sorrow  in  public."  Certainly  the 
Boche  has  none  of  the  Frenchman's  sense  of  the  dramatic, 


THE  HEART  OF  THE  HUNGRY  EMPIRE 

nor  his  tendency  to  hysteria.  An  observer  reported  that 
the  "epoch-making  first  meeting  of  the  National  Assembly 
at  Weimar  opened  like  the  unfinished  business  of  a  butchers' 
lodge."  Once,  during  my  absence  from  the  capital,  there 
was  a  flurry  of  excitement,  but  nothing  to  cause  me  to 
regret  my  presence  elsewhere.  The  "demonstration" 
against  the  Ally-housing  Adlon  proved  upon  my  return 
to  have  been  serious  chiefly  in  the  foreign  press.  At  the 
most  genuinely  German  restaurant  the  head  waiter  had  on 
the  same  date  informed  an  American  woman  that  her  guests 
would  no  longer  be  welcome  if  they  came  in  Allied  uniforms, 
and  that  English  would  not  be  spoken — then  took  her 
whispered  order  in  that  language  behind  a  concealing 
palm.  Dodgers  were  dropped  from  airplanes  on  the  capi- 
tal one  day,  protesting  against  a  half-dozen  articles  of  the 
treaty,  demanding  the  immediate  return  of  German  prison- 
ers, and  ending  with  the  query,  "Shall  noble  Germans  be 
judged  by  Serb  murderers,  Negro  states,  Japs,  Chinese, 
Siamese?  ..."  Billboards  blossomed  out  with  highly  col- 
ored maps  showing  the  territory  that  was  being  "stolen" 
from  the  Empire.  But  the  populace  seemed  to  give  little 
attention  to  these  appeals.  Ludendorff  called  the  Allied 
correspondents  together  and  broke  the  record  for  short 
interviews  with,  "If  this  is  what  they  mean  by  Wilson's 
Fourteen  Points,  our  enemies  can  go  to  hell."  Up  to  date 
they  have  not  fully  complied  with  the  general's  proposal. 
Haughty  Richard  Strauss  declined  to  waste  words  on  his 
Allied  fellow-guests  at  the  Adlon.  On  May  pth  several  of 
the  Berlin  dailies  admitted  at  last,  "We  are  conquered." 
Had  their  staffs  been  more  efficient  they  might  have  shared 
that  news  with  their  readers  several  months  earlier.  On 
the  third  Sunday  in  May,  when  the  subject  would  long 
since  have  grown  cold  among  less  phlegmatic  peoples,  I 
attended  a  dozen  meetings  of  protest  against  the  peace  terms 
in  as  many  parts  of  the  city.  Nothing  could  have  been 


THE  HEART  OF  THE  HUNGRY  EMPIRE 

more  ladylike,  silent,  orderly,  and  funereal,  with  the  pos- 
sible exception  of  the  processions  that  formed  after  the 
meetings  were  over  and  plodded  noiselessly  down  the 
shaded  length  of  Unter  den  Linden. 

In  the  first  heat  of  despair  a  Trauerwoche,  or  week  of 
mourning,  was  decreed  throughout  the  Empire,  with  the 
cast-iron  fist  of  dreaded  Noske  to  enforce  it,  but  the  nation 
took  it  less  seriously  than  its  forcible  language  warranted: 

In  the  time  between  May  loth  and  i6th,  inclusive,  must  be  postponed: 

All  public  theater  and  musical  representations,  plays  and  similar 
jovialities,  so  long  as  there  is  not  in  them  a  higher  interest  for  art  or 
for  science,  and  unless  they  bear  a  serious  character.  Especially  are 
forbidden: 

Representations  in  music-halls,  cabarets,  and  circuses,  musical  and 
similar  entertainments  in  inns  and  taverns. 

All  joyful  public  dances  (Tanzlustbarkeiten),  as  well  as  social  and 
private  dance  entertainments  in  public  places  or  taverns. 

All  dramatic  representations  and  gaieties  in  the  public  streets,  roads, 
squares,  and  other  public  places. 

Cinematographic  entertainments  which  do  not  bear  witness  to  the 
earnestness  of  the  times;  all  horse-races  and  similar  public  sporting 
activities. 

Gambling  clubs  are  to  close,  and  to  remain  closed  also  after  the  i6th 
until  further  notice. 

There  was  no  clause  demanding  that  Germany  fast  or 
reduce  her  consumption  of  food  to  the  minimum;  she  had 
long  been  showing  that  evidence  of  national  sorrow  without 
the  necessity  of  a  formal  command. 


VII 

"GIVE  us  FOOD!" 

NOW  then,  having  fortified  ourselves  for  the  ordeal, 
let  us  take  a  swift,  running  glance  at  the  "food  situa- 
tion" in  Berlin.  That  we  have  escaped  the  subject  thus 
far  is  little  short  of  miraculous,  for  it  is  almost  impossible 
to  spend  an  hour  in  the  hungry  capital  without  having 
that  burning  question  come  up  in  one  form  or  another. 
The  inhabitants  of  every  class,  particularly  the  well-to-do, 
talked  food  all  the  time,  in  and  out  of  turn.  No  matter 
what  topic  one  brought  up,  they  were  sure  to  drift  back 
to  that.  Their  best  anecdotes  were  the  stirring  adventure 
of  getting  a  pound  of  butter  or  ('Sh !)  where  they  had  found  a 
half-pound  of  cocoa  for  sale.  The  women  were  always 
discussing  some  kind  of  Ersatz  food,  how  it  tasted  or  how 
nearly  it  comes  to  tasting,  how  to  make  it  up  in  the  least 
unappetizing  manner,  where  (Now,  keep  this  strictly  to 
yourself!)  one  could  get  it  for  only  a  few  times  at  a  fair 
price.  It  is  curious  how  one's  thoughts  persist  in  sticking 
to  food  when  one  hasn't  enough  of  it.  I  soon  found  myself 
thinking  of  little  else,  and  I  am  by  no  means  a  sybarite  or 
an  epicurean.  Most  of  Germany  was  hungry,  but  Berlin 
was  so  in  a  superlative  degree.  No  one  seemed  to  escape 
comparative  famine  or  to  have  strength  of  will  enough  to 
avoid  discussion  of  the  absorbing  topic  of  the  hour.  When 
I  called  on  Sudermann  at  his  comfortable  residence  in  the 
suburb  of  Grunewald  he  could  not  confine  his  thoughts  to 
drama  or  literature,  or  even  to  the  "atrocious"  peace  terms. 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

for  more  than  a  sentence  or  two  before  he  also  drifted  back 
to  the  subject  of  food — how  hungry  he  had  been  for  months ; 
how  he  had  suffered  from  lack  of  proper  nourishment  during 
a  recent  convalescence;  how  he  had  been  forced  to  resort 
to  Schleichhandel  to  keep  himself  and  his  sick  daughter  alive. 
Loose-fitting  clothing,  thin,  sallow  faces,  prominent  cheek- 
bones, were  the  rule  among  Berliners;  the  rosy  complexions 
and  the  fine  teeth  of  former  days  were  conspicuous  by  their 
scarcity.  The  prevailing  facial  tint  in  the  city  was  a 
grayish-yellow.  "Why,  how  thin  you  are!"  had  become 
taboo  in  social  circles.  Old  acquaintance  meeting  old  friend 
was  almost  sure  to  find  his  collar  grown  too  large  for  him. 
Old  friend,  perhaps,  did  not  realize  that  sartorial  change 
in  his  own  appearance,  his  mirror  pictured  it  so  gradually, 
but  he  was  quick  to  note  a  similar  uncouthness  in  the  garb 
of  old  acquaintance.  In  the  schoolroom  there  were  not 
red  cheeks  enough  to  make  one  pre-war  pair,  unless  the  face 
of  a  child  recently  returned  from  the  country,  shining  like 
a  new  moon  in  a  fog,  trebled  the  pasty  average.  Every 
row  included  pitiful  cases  of  arrested  development,  while 
watery  eyes  turned  the  solemn,  listless  gaze  of  premature 
old  age  on  the  visitor  from  every  side.  The  newspapers  of 
Berlin  were  full  of  complaints  that  pupils  were  still  required 
to  attend  as  many  hours  and  otherwise  strive  to  attain  pre- 
war standards.  It  was  ' '  undemocratic, ' '  protested  many  par- 
ents, for  it  gave  the  few  children  of  those  wealthy  enough  to 
indulge  in  Schleichhandel  an  unfair  advantage  over  the  under- 
fed youngsters  of  the  masses.  Even  adults  condoled  with 
one  another  that  their  desire  and  ability  to  work  had  sunk 
to  an  incredibly  low  level.  "Three  hours  in  my  office," 
moaned  one  contributor,  "and  my  head  is  swirling  so 
dizzily  that  I  am  forced  to  stretch  out  on  my  divan,  dropping 
most  pressing  affairs.  Yet  before  the  war  I  worked  twelve 
and  fourteen  hours  a  day  at  high  pressure,  and  strode  home 
laughing  at  the  idea  of  fatigue." 

138 


"GIVE  US  FOOD!" 

It  was  perfectly  good  form  in  Berlin  for  a  man  in  evening 
dress  to  wrap  up  a  crust  of  black  bread  and  carry  it  away 
with  him.  Even  in  the  best  restaurants  waiters  in  unim- 
peachable attire  ate  all  the  leavings — in  the  rare  cases 
that  there  were  any — on  their  way  back  to  the  kitchen.  I 
have  already  mentioned  the  constant  munching  of  wretched 
lunches  by  theater  audiences.  The  pretense  of  a  meal  on 
the  stage  was  sure  to  turn  the  most  uproarious  comedy 
into  a  tear-provoking  melodrama.  Playwrights  avoided 
such  scenes  in  recent  works;  managers  were  apt  to  "cut 
them  out"  when  offering  the  older  classics.  The  Berliner 
suffered  far  more  from  the  cold  than  in  the  bygone  days  of 
plenitude.  Two  or  three  raw  spells  during  the  month  of 
May,  which  I  scarcely  felt  myself,  found  thousands  buttoned 
up  in  one  and  even  two  overcoats,  and  wrapped  to  their 
noses  in  mufflers.  The  newspapers  were  constantly  pub- 
lishing "hunger  sketches";  the  jokesters  found  the  pre- 
vailing theme  an  endless  source  of  sad  amusement.  "There 
are  many  children  of  four  who  have  never  tasted  butter," 
remarked  one  paragrapher;  "some  hardly  know  what  meat 
is;  no  one  of  that  age  has  ever  tasted  real  bread."  A 
current  joke  ran:  "How  old  is  your  sister?"  "I  don't 
know,"  replied  the  foil,  "but  she  can  still  remember  how 
bananas  taste."  A  cartoonist  showed  a  lean  and  hollow- 
eyed  individual  standing  aghast  before  a  friend  whose 
waistcoat  still  bulged  like  a  bay-window — where  he  found 
him  in  Berlin  is  a  mystery — with  the  caption,  "Mein  lieber 
Karl,  you  must  have  been  getting  some  of  that  famous 
American  bacon!"  Those  food-supplies  from  America,  so 
incessantly  announced,  were  a  constant  source  both  of 
amusement  and  of  wrath  in  Germany,  not  wholly  without 
reason,  as  I  shall  show  before  I  have  done  with  this  dis- 
tressing subject. 

There  was  a  suggestion  of  the  famine  victims  of  India 
in  many  German  faces,  particularly  among  the  poor  of  large 

139 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

cities  and  in  factory  districts.  In  a  social  stampede  such 
as  that  surging  through  Germany  for  the  past  year  or  two 
those  who  get  down  under  the  hoofs  of  the  herd  are  the 
chief  sufferers.  The  poor,  the  sick,  whether  at  home  or  in 
hospitals,  the  weak,  the  old,  the  less  hardy  women,  and  the 
little  children  showed  the  most  definite  evidence  of  the 
efficiency  of  the  blockade  and  of  the  decrease  in  home  pro- 
duction. On  the  streets,  especially  of  the  poorer  districts, 
the  majority  of  those  one  passed  looked  as  if  they  ought 
to  be  in  bed,  though  many  a  household  included  invalids 
never  seen  in  public.  Flocks  of  ragged,  unsoaped,  pasty- 
skinned  children  swarmed  in  the  outskirts.  Even  such 
food  as  was  to  be  had  by  those  in  moderate  circumstances 
contained  slight  nourishment,  next  to  none  for  weaklings 
and  babies;  while  the  most  hardy  found  next  morning 
that  very  little  of  it  had  been  taken  up  by  the  body.  Hasty 
visitors  to  Berlin,  well  supplied  with  funds,  who  spent  a 
few  days  in  the  best  hotels,  often  with  the  right  to  draw 
upon  the  American  or  Allied  commissaries,  or  with  supplies 
tucked  away  in  their  luggage,  were  wont  to  report  upon  their 
return  that  the  hunger  of  Germany  was  "all  propaganda." 
Those  who  lived  the  unfavored  life  of  the  masses,  even 
for  as  short  a  time,  seldom,  if  ever,  confirmed  this  complacent 
verdict.  There  were,  of  course,  gradations  in  want,  from  the 
semi-starvation  of  the  masses  to  the  comparative  plenty 
of  the  well-to-do;  but  the  only  ones  who  could  be  said  to 
show  no  signs  whatever  of  under-nourishment  were  for- 
eigners, war  profiteers,  and  those  with  a  strangle-hold  on  the 
public  purse. 

The  scarcity  of  food  was  everywhere  in  evidence.  Almost 
no  appetizing  things  were  displayed  to  the  public  gaze. 
The  windows  of  food-dealers  were  either  empty  or  filled  with 
laborious  falsehoods  about  the  taste  and  efficacy  of  the 
Ersatz  wares  in  them.  Slot-machines  no  longer  yielded 
a  return  for  the  dropping  of  a  pewter  coin.  Street  venders 

140 


"GIVE  US  FOOD!" 

of  anything  edible  were  almost  never  seen,  except  a  rare 
hawker  of  turnips  or  asparagus — Spar  gel,  for  some  reason, 
seemed  to  be  nearly  plentiful — who  needed  not  even  raise 
their  voices  to  dispose  of  their  stock  in  record  time.  It 
was  no  use  dropping  in  on  one's  friends,  for  even  though 
the  welcome  were  genuine,  their  larder  was  sure  to  be  as 
scantily  garnished  as  one's  own. 

The  distribution  of  such  food  as  remained  was  carried 
on  with  the  elaborate  orderliness  for  which  the  German 
has  long  been  noted.  All  Berlin  bloomed  with  posters 
advising  those  entitled  to  them  where  they  could  get  six 
ounces  of  marmalade  on  such  a  day,  or  four  pounds  of 
potatoes  on  another  date.  The  newspapers  gave  up  much 
of  their  space  to  the  Lebensmittelkalender,  or  "food  calendar," 
of  Berlin,  the  capital  being  divided  into  hundreds  of  sections, 
or  "commissions,"  for  the  purposes  of  distribution: 

Until  Sunday,  in  the  divisions  of  the  169, 170, 190,  205,  and  aoyth  Bread 
Commissions,  125  grams  of  cheese  per  head  are  being  allowed.  During 
the  next  week  50  grams  of  cooking  fat  for  the  coupon  No.  £4  of  the  new 
special  card  for  foodstuffs  from  outside  the  Empire.  A  half-pound  of 
foreign  white  flour,  for  those  previously  reporting,  in  the  time  between 
the  4th  and  the  yth  of  June,  1919,  on  the  coupon  PS  of  the  new  card. 

This  week,  as  already  stated,  there  will  be  given  out  a  new  source 
of  nourishment  as  a  substitute  for  meat.  The  main  rations  remain  un- 
changed. In  Bread  Districts  116,  118,  119,  120,  and  209  will  be  given 
out  125  grams  of  marmalade.  On  the  CI  and  CII  cards  will  be  given  a 
can  of  condensed  milk  every  four  days.  Children  born  between  May 
i,  1913,  and  May  i,  1917,  receive  a  card  for  chocolate  (though  it  is  not 
guaranteed  that  they  can  find  any  for  sale).  On  coupon  £2  will  be  given 
125  grams  of  American  pork  products. 

As  late  as  May  the  long-announced  supplies  of  food  from 
America  had  not  put  in  an  appearance  in  sufficient  quanti- 
ties to  make  an  appreciable  increase  in  Germany's  scanty 
ration.  In  the  occupied  region,  where  our  army  kept  close 
tabs  on  the  distribution  and  prices,  and  even  assisted  the 

141 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

municipalities,  for  the  sake  of  keeping  peace  in  the  com- 
munity, American  foodstuffs  reached  all  classes  of  the  popu- 
lation, with  the  exception  of  the  "self -providing"  peasants. 
But  "over  in  Germany"  only  tantalizing  samples  of  what 
might  come  later  were  to  be  had  at  the  time  of  my  visit. 
This  may  have  been  the  fault  of  the  Boche  himself,  though 
he  laid  it  to  the  enmity  of  the  Allies,  whom  he  accused  of 
purposely  "keeping  him  starved,"  of  dangling  before  his 
hungry  nose  glowing  false  promises  until  he  had  signed 
the  Peace  Treaty.  The  "Hoover  crowd,"  demanding  pay- 
ment in  gold  before  turning  over  supplies  to  the  authorities 
of  unoccupied  Germany,  often  had  laden  ships  in  port  long 
before  the  Germans  were  prepared  to  pay  for  the  cargo. 
Moreover,  once  financially  satisfied,  they  bade  the  Teutons 
"take  it  away,"  and  washed  their  hands  of  the  matter. 
There  were  rumors  that  large  quantities  were  illegally 
acquired  by  the  influential.  At  any  rate,  the  "American 
food  products"  publicly  for  sale  or  visibly  in  existence 
inside  Germany  were  never  sufficient,  during  my  stay  there, 
to  drive  famine  from  any  door.  Berlin  and  the  larger  cities 
issued  a  few  ounces  of  them  per  week  to  those  who  arrived 
early;  in  the  rest  of  the  country  they  were  as  intangible  as 
rumors  of  lif e  in  the  world  to  come. 

The  Brotcommissionen  charged  with  the  equal  distribu- 
tion of  such  food  as  existed  were  chiefly  run  by  school- 
teachers. Their  laborious  system  of  ledgers  and  "tickets" 
was  typically  German,  on  the  whole  well  done,  though  now 
and  then  their  boasted  efficiency  fell  down.  Seldom,  how- 
ever, were  such  swarming  mobs  lined  up  before  the  places 
of  distribution  as  in  France — which  implied  a  better  man- 
agement behind  the  wicket.  Each  applicant  carried  a  note- 
book in  which  an  entry  was  made  in  an  orderly  but  brief 
manner,  and  was  soon  on  his  way  again,  clutching  his  hand- 
ful of  precious  "tickets." 

My  own  case  was  a  problem  to  the  particular  Bread 

142 


"GIVE  US  FOOD!" 

Commission  of  the  ward  I  first  inhabited  in  Berlin,  to  which 
I  hastened  as  soon  as  Wilhelmstrasse  had  legalized  my 
existence  within  the  country.  But  they  were  not  only 
courteous  to  a  superlative  degree,  in  spite  of — or,  perhaps, 
because  of — my  nationality;  they  insisted  on  working  out 
the  problem,  before  which  a  Latin  would  probably  have 
thrown  up  his  hands  in  disgust  or  despair.  There  was  no 
difficulty  in  supplying  me  with  food-tickets  during  my  stay 
in  the  capital,  nor  of  transferring  my  right  to  eat  to  any 
other  city  in  which  I  chose  to  make  my  residence.  But 
what  was  to  be  done  for  a  man  who  proposed  to  tramp 
across  the  country,  without  any  fixed  dwelling-place?  Ap- 
parently the  ration  system  of  Germany  had  neglected  to 
provide  for  such  cases.  A  long  conference  of  all  members 
of  the  commission  wrestled  with  the  enigma,  while  the  line 
of  ticket-seekers  behind  me  grew  to  an  unprecedented 
length.  A  dozen  solutions  were  suggested,  only  to  be 
rejected  as  irregular  or  specifically  verboten.  But  a  plan 
was  found  at  last  that  seemed  free  from  flaws.  Tickets  of 
all  kinds  were  issued  to  me  at  once  for  the  ensuing  week, 
then  the  foolscap  sheet  on  which  such  issue  would  have 
been  noted  weekly,  had  I  remained  in  the  capital,  was 
decorated  with  the  words,  in  conspicuous  blue  pencil, 
' '  Dauernd  auf  Reise ' ' — ' '  Always  traveling. ' '  Provincial  offi- 
cials might  in  some  cases  decline  to  honor  it,  but  the  com- 
mission was  of  the  unanimous  opinion  that  most  of  them 
would  accept  the  document  as  a  command  from  the  central 
government. 

Some  of  the  supplies  to  which  the  tickets  entitled  me  must 
be  purchased  on  the  spot,  in  specified  shops  scattered 
about  the  neighboring  streets.  That  was  a  matter  of  a  few 
minutes,  for  the  shopkeepers  already  had  them  wrapped 
in  tiny  packages  of  the  allotted  size.  There  was  a  half- 
pound  of  sugar,  coarse-grained,  but  nearly  white;  then  a 
bar  of  sandy  soap  of  the  size  of  a  walnut.  My  week's 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

supply  of  butter  I  tucked  easily  into  a  safety-match  box 
and  ate  with  that  day's  lunch.  Three  coupons  on  an 
elaborate  card  entitled  "American  Foodstuffs"  yielded 
four  ounces  of  lard  (in  lieu  of  bacon),  two  ounces  of  what 
seemed  to  be  tallow,  and  a  half-pound  of  white  flour.  The 
price  of  the  entire  collection,  being  government  controlled, 
was  reasonable  enough,  especially  in  view  of  the  foreign 
rate  of  exchange;  a  total  of  two  mk.  eighty,  or  less  than  the 
butter  alone  would  have  cost  from  "underground"  dealers. 
Fortunately  the  meat,  potato,  and  bread  tickets  were  good 
anywhere,  sparing  me  the  necessity  of  carrying  these  sup- 
plies with  me.  In  fact,  Reisebrotmarken,  or  "travel  bread- 
tickets,"  were  legal  tender  throughout  the  Empire,  and 
were  not  confined  to  any  particular  date  or  place.  Those 
I  had  been  furnished  for  a  month  to  come,  a  whole 
sheath  of  them,  totaling  twenty -five  hundred  grams.  That 
sounds,  perhaps,  like  a  lot  of  bread,  but  the  fact  is  that 
each  elaborately  engraved  fifty -gram  coupon  represented  a 
thin  slice  of  some  black  concoction  of  bran,  turnip-meal, 
and  perhaps  sawdust  which  contained  little  more  nourish- 
ment and  was  far  less  appetizing  in  appearance  than  the 
ticket  itself.  The  potato-tickets  were  invaluable;  without 
them  one  was  either  denied  the  chief  substance  of  a  Berlin 
meal  or  forced  to  pay  a  painful  price  for  an  illegal  serving 
of  it;  with  them  one  could  obtain  two  hundred  and  fifty 
grams  for  a  mere  thirty  pfennigs.  Other  vegetables, 
which  were  just  then  beginning  to  appear  on  bills  of  fare, 
were  not  subject  to  ticket  regulation. 

The  white  flour  left  me  with  a  problem  equal  to  that  I 
had  been  to  the  Brotcommissionen.  Obviously  I  could  not 
afford  to  waste  such  a  luxury;  quite  as  obviously  I  could 
not  eat  it  raw.  In  the  end  I  turned  it  over  to  the  head 
waiter  of  my  hotel,  together  with  the  lard,  and  breakfasted 
next  morning  on  two  long-enduring  Pfannkuchen.  But  the 
go-between  charged  me  a  mark  for  his  trouble,  three  marks 

144 


"GIVE  US  FOOD!" 

for  two  eggs,  without  which  a  German  "pancake"  is  a  failure, 
and  a  mark  for  the  cooking ! 

I  drifted  out  to  the  central  market  of  Berlin  one  after- 
noon and  found  it  besieged  by  endless  queues  of  famished 
people,  not  one  of  whom  showed  signs  of  having  had  any- 
thing fit  to  eat,  nor  a  sufficient  quantity  of  anything  unfit, 
for  months.  Yet  the  only  articles  even  of  comparative 
abundance  were  heaps  of  beet-leaves.  A  few  fish,  a  score 
or  so  of  eels,  and  certain  unsavory  odds  and  ends,  all  "against 
tickets,"  were  surrounded  by  clamoring  throngs  which  only 
the  miracle  of  the  loaves  and  fishes  could  have  fed  even 
for  a  day  with  the  quantity  on  hand.  Only  the  flower- 
market  showed  a  supply  by  any  means  in  keeping  with  the 
demand,  and  that  only  because  various  experiments  had 
proved  flowers  of  no  edible  value.  The  emptiness  of  these 
great  market-places,  often  of  ambitious  architecture  and 
fitted  with  every  modern  convenience — except  food — the 
silence  of  her  vast  slaughter-house  pens,  and  the  idleness 
of  her  sometimes  immense,  up-to-date  kitchens,  make  the 
genuine  hunger  of  Germany  most  forcibly  apparent. 

The  efforts  of  the  masses  to  keep  from  being  crowded 
over  the  brink  into  starvation  had  given  Berlin  new  customs. 
Underfed  mobs  besieged  the  trains  in  their  attempts  to  get 
far  enough  out  into  the  country  to  pick  up  a  few  vegetables 
among  the  peasants.  Each  evening  the  elevated,  the  under- 
ground, and  the  suburban  trains  were  packed  with  gaunt, 
toil-worn  men,  women,  and  children,  the  last  two  classes  in 
the  majority,  returning  from  more  or  less  successful  foraging 
expeditions,  on  fourth-class  tickets,  to  the  surrounding 
farms  and  hamlets;  the  streets  carried  until  late  at  night 
emaciated  beings  shuffling  homeward,  bowed  double  under 
sacks  of  potatoes  or  turnips.  Then  there  were  the  Lauben- 
g&rten,  or  "arbor  gardens,"  that  had  grown  up  within  the 
past  few  years.  The  outer  edges  of  Berlin  and  of  all  the 
larger  cities  of  Germany  were  crowded  with  these  "arbor 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

colonists,"  living  in  thousands  of  tiny  wooden  shacks,  usu- 
ally unpainted,  often  built  of  odds  and  ends  of  lumber,  of 
drygoods-boxes,  of  tin  cans,  like  those  of  the  negro  laborers 
along  the  Panama  Canal  during  its  digging.  About  Berlin 
the  soil  is  sandy  and  gives  slight  reward  for  the  toil  of 
husbandry,  yet  not  an  acre  escaped  attempted  cultivation. 
In  most  cases  a  "general  farmer"  leased  a  large  tract  of 
land  and  parceled  it  out  in  tiny  plots,  hiring  a  carpenter 
to  build  the  huts  and  an  experienced  gardener  to  furnish 
vegetarian  information  to  the  city-bred  "colonists."  Here 
the  laborer  or  the  clerk  turned  husbandman  after  his  day's 
work  in  town  was  done,  and  got  at  least  air  and  exercise, 
even  though  he  made  no  appreciable  gain  in  his  incessant 
struggle  for  food.  Here,  too,  he  might  have  a  goat,  "the 
poor  man's  cow,"  to  keep  him  reminded  of  the  taste  of  milk, 
and  perhaps  a  pig  for  his  winter's  meat-supply. 

The  great  shortage  in  animal  flesh  and  fats  had  made  the 
German  of  the  urban  rank  and  file  a  vegetarian  by  force. 
Theoretically  every  one  got  the  allotted  one  hundred  and 
twenty-five  grams  of  meat  a  week;  practically  many  could 
not  even  pay  for  that,  and  even  if  they  had  been  able  to 
it  would  scarcely  have  ranked  them  among  the  carnivorous 
species.  The  rich,  of  course,  whether  in  hotels  or  private 
residences,  got  more  than  the  legal  amount,  and  of  a  some- 
what higher  quality,  but  they  paid  fabulous  prices  for  it, 
and  they  could  not  but  realize  that  they  were  cheating 
their  less  fortunate  fellow-countrymen  when  they  ate  it. 
The  war  had  not  merely  reduced  Germany's  cattle  numeri- 
cally; the  lack  of  fodder  had  made  the  animals  scarcely 
fit  for  butchering.  They  weighed,  perhaps,  one  half  what 
they  did  in  time  of  peace,  and  the  meat  was  fiberless  and 
unnourishing  as  so  much  dogfish.  The  best  steak  I  ever 
tasted  in  Berlin  would  have  brought  a  growl  of  wrath  from 
the  habitu6  of  a  Bowery  "joint."  The  passing  of  a  gaunt 
Schlachtkuh  down  a  city  street  toward  the  slaughter-house 

146 


"GIVE  US  FOOD!" 

was  sure  to  bring  an  excited  crowd  of  inhabitants  in  its  wake. 
To  bread  and  potatoes  had  fallen  the  task  of  keeping  the 
mass  of  the  people  alive,  and  the  latter  were  usually,  the 
former  always,  of  low  quality 

The  resultant  gnawings  of  perpetual  hunger  had  brought 
to  light  a  myriad  of  Ersatz  foods  that  were  in  reality  no 
food  at  all.  It  was  frequently  asserted  that  this  consump- 
tion of  unwholesome  imitations  of  food  was  responsible 
for  the  erratic  conduct  of  many  a  present-day  German, 
manifesting  itself  now  in  morose,  now  in  talkative  moods, 
often  in  more  serious  deviations  from  his  moral  character. 
Certainly  it  had  made  him  less  pugnacious.  Indirectly 
it  had  made  him  more  of  a  liar — at  least  on  his  bills  of  fare. 
The  best  hotel  in  Berlin  made  no  bones  of  shredding  turnips 
or  beet-roots  and  serving  them  as  mashed  potatoes.  Once 
in  a  while  an  honest  waiter  warned  the  unsuspecting  client, 
as  was  the  case  with  one  who  shattered  my  fond  hopes  of 
an  appetizing  dish  announced  on  the  menu-card  he  had 
handed  me.  "Venison  your  grandmother!"  he  whispered, 
hoarsely.  "It  is  horse-meat  soaked  in  vinegar.  Take  the 
beef,  for  at  least  that  is  genuine,  poor  as  it  is."  Milk,  butter, 
and  all  such  "trimmings"  as  olives,  pickles,  sauces,  pre- 
serves, and  the  like  were  wholly  unknown  in  public  eating- 
places.  Pepper  I  saw  but  once  in  all  Germany — as  a  special 
luxury  in  a  private  household.  Coffee  might  now  and  then 
be  had,  but  an  imitation  of  burnt  corn  and  similar  ingredi- 
ents took  its  place  in  an  overwhelming  majority  of  cases, 
and  cost  several  times  what  real  coffee  did  before  the  war. 
Beechnut  oil,  supplied  only  to  those  holding  tickets,  did 
the  duty  of  butter  and  lard  in  cooking  processes.  The 
richest  and  most  influential  could  not  get  more  than  their 
scanty  share  of  the  atrocious,  indigestible  stuff  miscalled 
bread.  Bakers,  naturally,  were  mighty  independent.  But 
those  who  could  get  bread  often  got  cake,  for  there  was 
always  more  or  less  "underground"  traffic  in  forbidden 
11  i47 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

delicacies.  One  of  the  most  difficult  tasks  of  all  was  to 
lay  in  a  lunch  for  a  journey.  Before  my  first  trip  out  of  the 
capital  I  tramped  the  streets  for  more  than  an  hour  in  quest 
of  something  edible  to  carry  along  with  me,  and  finally  paid 
six  marks  for  an  egg-and-sausage  sandwich  that  went  easily 
into  a  vest  pocket. 

Good  linen  had  almost  wholly  disappeared — at  least  from 
sight.  It  was  never  seen  on  dining-tables,  having  long 
since  been  commandeered  by  the  government  for  the  making 
of  bandages — or  successfully  hidden.  Paper  napkins  and 
tablecloths  were  the  invariable  rule  even  in  the  most  expen- 
sive establishments.  Personal  linen  was  said  to  be  in  a  sad 
state  among  rich  and  poor  alike;  the  Ersatz  soap  or  soap- 
powders  reduced  it  quickly  to  the  consistency  and  dura- 
bility of  tissue-paper.  Many  of  the  proudest  families  had 
laid  away  their  best  small-clothes,  hoping  for  the  return  of 
less  destructive  wash-days.  As  to  soap  for  toilet  purposes, 
among  German  residents  it  was  little  more  than  a  memory; 
such  as  still  existed  had  absolutely  no  fat  in  it,  and  was  made 
almost  wholly  of  sand.  Foreigners  lucky  or  foresighted 
enough  to  have  brought  a  supply  with  them  might  win  the 
good  will  of  those  with  whom  they  came  in  contact  far  more 
easily  than  by  the  distribution  of  mere  money. 

But  we  are  getting  off  the  all-absorbing  topic  of  food. 
If  the  reader  feels  he  can  endure  it,  I  wish  to  take  him  to  a 
half-dozen  meals  in  Berlin,  where  he  may  see  and  taste 
for  himself.  The  first  one  is  in  a  public  soup-kitchen,  where 
it  will  be  wiser  just  to  look  on,  or  at  most  to  pretend  to  eat. 
Long  lines  of  pitiful  beings,  women  and  children  predomi- 
nating, file  by  the  faintly  steaming  kettles,  each  carrying 
a  small  receptacle  into  which  the  attendants  toss  a  ladleful 
of  colored  water,  sometimes  with  a  piece  of  turnip  or  some 
still  more  plebeian  root  in  it.  The  needy  were  lucky  to 
get  one  such  "hot  meal"  a  day;  the  rest  of  the  time  they 

consumed  the  dregs  of  the  markets  or  things  which  were  fed 

148 


"GIVE  US  FOOD!" 

only  to  hogs  before  the  war.  The  school  lunch  and  often 
the  supper  of  perhaps  the  majority  of  the  children  of  Berlin 
consisted  of  a  thin  but  heavy  slice  of  war-bread  lightly 
smeared  with  a  colic-provoking  imitation  of  jam.  In  con- 
trast, one  might  stroll  into  the  Adlon  in  the  late  afternoon 
and  see  plump  and  prosperous  war  profiteers — "Jews"  the 
Berliners  called  them,  though  they  were  by  no  means  con- 
fined to  a  single  race — taking  their  plentiful  "tea"  in  the 
midst  of,  and  often  in  company  with,  Allied  officers. 

My  own  first  German  meal — for  those  in  the  occupied 
region  were  rather  meals  in  Germany — was  a  "breakfast" 
in  a  second-class  hotel,  of  the  kind  with  which  almost  every 
one  began  the  day  in  the  Fatherland.  There  was  set  before 
me  with  great  formality  a  cupful  of  lukewarm  water  with 
something  in  it  which  made  a  faint  effort  to  pretend  it  was 
coffee,  a  very  thin  slice  of  war-bread,  yielded  only  after  long 
argument  because  I  had  as  yet  no  bread-tickets,  and  a 
spoonful  of  a  sickly  looking  purple  mess  that  masqueraded 
under  the  name  of  "marmalade."  Where  the  Germans  got 
their  comparative  abundance  of  this  last  stuff  I  do  not  know. 
Its  appearance  suggested  that  it  was  made  of  bruised  flesh; 
its  taste  reminded  one  of  rotten  apples.  The  bill  on  this  oc- 
casion was  three  marks,  plus  10  per  cent,  for  service.  Begin 
a  few  days  on  that  and  see  how  much  "pep"  you  have  left; 
by  noon  you  will  know  the  full  meaning  of  the  word  hungry. 

I  took  lunch  that  day  in  a  working-man's  restaurant. 
There  I  got  a  filling,  though  not  a  very  lasting,  dinner  of 
beans  and  potatoes,  a  "German  beefsteak" — resembling 
our  "Hamburger,"  but  possibly  made  of  horse-meat — a 
slice  of  what  Europe  calls  bacon,  which  is  really  salt  pork, 
and  two  mugs  of  weak  beer — total,  four  mk.  forty.  No 
bread  was  asked  or  given.  The  clients  ranged  from  small 
merchants  to  hackmen. 

For  supper  I  investigated  a  long-established  vegetarian 
restaurant  on  Friedrichstrasse.  An  oat  soup  was  followed 

149 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

by  a  plate  of  mashed  peas,  one  storage  egg  (two  marks), 
a  cold  potato  salad,  a  pint  of  "white  beer,"  and  a  pudding 
that  would  have  been  tasteless  but  for  its  Himbeer  sauce, 
sickly  as  hair-oil.  The  check  came  to  seven  mk.  seventy- 
five,  including  the  usual  tip. 

A  few  blocks  farther  on  along  this  same  chief  cross-artery 
of  Berlin  is  a  famous  "Tunnel"  restaurant  below  the  level 
of  the  sidewalk.  If  you  have  been  in  the  German  capital 
during  this  century  you  have  no  doubt  passed  it,  though 
you  probably  took  care  not  to  enter.  In  1919  it  was  one  of 
the  chief  rendezvous  of  lost  souls.  Girls  of  sixteen,  already 
pass£es,  mingled  with  women  of  once  refined  instincts 
whom  the  war  had  driven  to  the  streets.  Their  male  com- 
panions were  chiefly  "tough  characters,"  some  of  them  still 
in  uniform,  who  might  give  you  a  half -insolent,  half -friendly 
greeting  as  you  entered,  but  who  displayed  little  of  that 
rowdyism  so  characteristic  of  their  class  in  our  own  country. 
Here  no  attention  was  paid  to  meatless  days,  and,  though 
the  date  was  plainly  written  on  the  bill  of  fare,  it  offered, 
even  on  Tuesdays  and  Fridays,  several  species  of  beef  and 
veal  and  many  kinds  of  game — wild  duck,  marsh  fowl, 
rabbit,  mountain  goat,  and  so  on,  all  evidently  the  real 
article.  The  servings  were  more  than  generous,  the  potatoes 
almost  too  plentiful.  The  menu  asserted  that  "Meat, 
bread,  and  potatoes  were  served  only  against  tickets,"  but 
for  the  payment  of  an  extra  twenty -five  pfennigs  the  lack 
of  these  was  overlooked,  except  in  the  case  of  bread.  A 
small  glass  of  some  sickly-sweetish  stuff  called  beer  cost  the 
same  amount;  in  the  more  reputable  establishments  of  the 
capital  the  average  price  for  a  beverage  little  better  was 
about  four  times  that.  Five  marks  sufficed  to  settle  the 
bill,  after  the  most  nearly  satisfying  meal  I  had  so  far  found 
in  Berlin.  Here  15  per  cent,  was  reckoned  in  for  service. 
Evidently  the  waiters  had  scorned  a  mere  10  per  cent,  in  so 
low-priced  a  resort. 

150 


"GIVE  US  FOOD!" 

While  I  ate,  an  old  woman  wandered  in,  peddling  some 
sort  of  useless  trinkets.  She  was  chalky  in  color  and 
emaciated  to  the  last  degree,  staggering  along  under  her 
basket  as  if  it  had  been  an  iron  chest.  Several  of  the 
habitues  got  rid  of  her  with  a  pewter  coin.  I  happened  to 
have  no  change  and  gave  her  instead  a  few  bread-tickets. 
The  result  was  not  exactly  what  I  had  expected.  So  great 
was  her  gratitude  for  so  extraordinary  a  gift,  beside  which 
mere  money  seemed  of  little  or  no  interest,  that  she  huddled 
over  my  table  all  the  rest  of  the  evening.  Before  the  war 
she  had  been  the  wife  of  a  shopkeeper  in  Charlottenburg. 
Her  husband  and  both  her  sons  had  died  in  France.  Busi- 
ness had  dwindled  away  for  lack  of  both  demand  and  sup- 
ply until  she  had  been  dispossessed,  and  for  nearly  two  years 
she  had  been  wandering  the  night  streets  of  Berlin  with 
her  basket.  Her  story  was  that  of  thousands  in  the  larger 
cities  of  Germany. 

"No,  I  am  not  exactly  sick,"  she  explained,  after  all  but 
toppling  over  upon  me,  "but  my  heart  is  so  weak  that  it 
gives  way  when  I  try  to  work.  I  faint  in  the  street  every 
few  hours  and  know  nothing  about  it  until  I  find  myself  in 
some  shop  door  or  alleyway  where  passers-by  have  carried 
me.  The  back  of  my  head  and  my  neck  have  ached  for 
more  than  a  year  now,  all  the  time,  from  the  chin  clear 
around.  It  is  lack  of  food.  I  know  where  I  could  get  plenty 
of  meat,  if  I  could  pay  for  it  and  spend  six  or  seven  marks 
for  a  coach  to  get  there." 

"But  you  get  American  bacon  now,  don't  you?"  I  put  in, 
more  out  of  curiosity  to  know  how  she  would  answer  than 
to  get  information. 

"Bacon!"  she  coughed.  "Yes,  indeed,  one  slice  every 
two  weeks!  Enough  to  grease  my  tongue,  if  it  needed  it." 

A  moment  later  I  chanced  to  mention  Holland.  She 
broke  off  a  mumbling  account  of  the  horrors  of  war  suffering 
at  home  with: 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

"Holland!  Isn't  that  where  our  Kaiser  is?  Do  you 
think  our  wicked  enemies  will  do  something  wrong  to  his 
Majesty?  Ah  me,  if  only  he  would  come  back!" 

Like  all  her  class,  she  was  full  of  apologies  for  the  deposed 
ruler  and  longed  to  bask  once  more  in  the  blaze  of  his  former 
glory,  however  far  she  was  personally  removed  from  it. 
Nor  had  her  sufferings  dimmed  her  patriotism.  An  evil- 
faced  fellow  at  a  neighboring  table  spat  a  stream  of  his 
alleged  beer  on  the  floor  and  shouted  above  the  hubbub 
of  maudlin  voices:  "Ein  Hundeleben  ist  das  in  Deutschland! 
A  dog's  life !  Mine  for  a  better  country  as  quick  as  possible. ' ' 

"Rats  always  desert  a  sinking  ship,"  snapped  the  old 
woman,  glaring  at  the  speaker  with  a  display  of  her  two 
yellow  fangs,  "no  matter  how  well  they  have  once  fared 
upon  it." 

The  fifth  meal  to  which  the  reader  is  invited  was  one 
corresponding  to  our  "business  man's  lunch."  The  clients 
were  wholesale  merchants,  brokers,  lawyers,  and  the  like. 
In  its  furnishings  the  place  was  rather  sumptuous,  but  as 
much  cannot  be  said  of  its  food.  My  own  luncheon  con- 
sisted of  a  turnip  soup,  roast  veal  (a  mere  shaving  of  it, 
as  tasteless  as  deteriorated  rubber) .with  one  potato,  a  "Ger- 
man beefsteak,"  some  inedible  mystery  dubbed  "lemon 
pudding,"  and  a  small  bottle  of  water — beer  was  no  longer 
served  in  this  establishment.  The  bill,  including  the  cus- 
tomary forced  tip,  was  nineteen  mk.  eighty,  and  the  scornful 
attitude  of  the  waiter  proved  that  it  was  considerably  less 
than  the  average.  Even  here  the  majority  of  the  dishes 
were  some  species  of  Ersatz,  and  the  meat  itself  was  so  under- 
nourished that  it  had  virtually  no  nourishment  to  pass  on. 
Of  ten  pounds  of  it,  according  to  the  wholesale  butcher 
who  sat  opposite  me,  at  least  five  disappeared  in  the  cooking. 
Finish  such  a  meal  at  one  and  you  were  sure  to  be  ragingly 
hungry  by  three.  Yet  there  was  less  evidence  of  "profiteer- 
ing" in  establishments  of  this  kind  in  Berlin  than  I  had 

152 


"GIVE  US  FOOD!0 

expected.  The  ice-cold  bottle  of  mineral  water,  for  instance, 
cost  forty-five  pfennigs,  a  mere  four  cents  to  foreigners. 
The  German  does  not  seem  to  go  over  his  entire  stock 
daily  and  mark  it  higher  in  price  irrespective  of  its  cost  to 
him,  as  in  Paris  and,  I  fear,  in  our  own  beloved  land. 

But  there  was  one  restaurant  in  Berlin  where  a  real  meal, 
quite  free  from  Ersatz,  could  still  be  had,  by  those  who  could 
pay  for  it — the  famous  Borchardt's  in  Franzosischerstrasse. 
Situated  in  the  heart  of  the  capital,  in  the  very  shadow  of  the 
government  that  issues  those  stern  decrees  against  "under- 
ground" traffic  in  foodstuffs,  it  was  protected  by  the  rich 
and  influential,  and  by  the  same  government  officials  whose 
legal  duty  it  was  to  suppress  it.  Admittance  was  only  by 
personal  introduction,  as  to  a  gambling  club.  The  only 
laws  this  establishment  obeyed  were  in  the  serving  of  bread 
and  the  use  of  paper  in  place  of  table  linen.  Meatless  days 
meant  nothing  to  its  chefs;  many  articles  specifically  for- 
bidden in  restaurants  were  openly  served  to  its  fortunate 
guests.  It  depended,  of  course,  entirely  on  Schleichhandel 
for  its  supplies.  Among  the  clients,  on  the  evening  in  ques- 
tion, were  generals  out  of  uniform,  a  noted  dealer  in  muni- 
tions, a  manufacturer  of  army  cloth,  several  high  govern- 
ment officials,  two  or  three  Allied  correspondents,  and 
Bernsdorff's  right-hand  "man"  in  several  of  his  American 
trickeries — in  a  silky  green  gown  that  added  to  the  snaky 
effect  of  her  serpent-like  eyes.  It  was  she  who  "fixed"  so 
thoroughly  the  proposed  attack  on  us  from  Mexico  during 
the  early  days  of  1917. 

Four  of  us  dined  together,  and  this  is  a  translation  of  the 
bill: 

Cover  i. tablecloth  and  napkins,  01  paper) 2.50  Marks 

Two  bottles  of  Yquem 90. 

Wine  tax  on  same 18. 

Half -bottle  Lafanta  (ordinary  wine) 13.50 

Tax  on  same 2.60 

Hors-d'oeuvre  (radishes,  foie  gras,  etc.) ....     150. 

153 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

Roast  veal  (very  ordinary) 80.     Marks 

Potatoes  (cost,  i  mark  in  the  market) 12.50 

Asparagus  (plentiful  in  Berlin) 54- 

Charlotte  (a  tasteless  dessert) 20. 

Ice 6. 

Bread  (one  very  thin  slice  each — black) .60 

Cigars  (three  horrible  cabbages) 18. 

Butter . .  4- 


471.20 
10  per  cent,  for  service 47-iS 


Total 518.35 

Thankfully  received,  May  8,  1919 

FRITZ  REICH. 

At  that  day's  rate  of  exchange  this  amounted  to  some- 
thing over  forty  dollars;  at  the  pre-war  rate,  which  was 
still  in  force  so  far  as  the  German  clients  were  concerned, 
it  was  about  one  hundred  and  twenty -five  dollars.  Small 
wonder  the  clientele  was  "select"  and  limited. 

Before  we  end  this  round  of  restaurants  let  us  settle  with 
the  waiters.  About  the  time  of  the  revolution  the  majority 
of  them  refused  to  have  their  income  any  longer  subject 
to  the  whims  of  clients,  a  movement  which  had  spread 
through  all  the  larger  cities  of  unoccupied  Germany.  In 
most  eating-places  a  charge  of  "10  per  cent,  for  service" 
was  now  added  to  the  bill;  in  a  few  cases  it  ran  as  high  as 
25  per  cent.  How  soon  they  will  be  demanding  100  per  cent, 
is  a  question  I  cannot  answer.  There  were  suggestions 
that  before  long  they  will  expect  to  get  free-will  tips  in  addi- 
tion to  the  forced  contribution,  especially  after  the  first 
flock  of  American  tourists  descends  upon  the  Fatherland. 
In  many  hotels  the  bills  were  stamped  "10  per  cent,  added" 
so  faintly  that  the  unsuspecting  new-comer  was  often  over- 
generous  by  mistake.  At  some  establishments  the  waiter 
was  required  to  inform  the  guest  that  the  service  fee  had 


"GIVE  US  FOOD!" 

been  included,  but  the  majority  labored  under  no  such  com- 
pulsion, and  those  who  did  frequently  whispered  the  informa- 
tion so  hurriedly  that  only  ears  sharpened  by  financial 
worries  could  catch  it.  Another  favorite  trick  was  to  find 
it  so  difficult  to  make  change  that  the  busy  client  finally 
stalked  out  without  it.  The  advantages  to  the  customer 
of  this  system  were  dubious;  the  waiters,  on  the  whole, 
seem  to  like  the  new  arrangement.  "We  may  not  get  any 
more,"  I  was  assured  in  a  wide  variety  of  cases,  "or  even 
as  much;  but  at  least  we  know  what  we  are  getting."  Some 
of  the  clan  seemed  to  do  their  best,  in  their  quiet,  phlegmatic 
way;  others  took  full  advantage  of  the  fact  that,  like  phy- 
sicians, they  got  their  fees,  anyway,  no  matter  how  poor  the 
service.  As  is  the  tendency  among  the  laboring  class  the 
world  over,  the  fellows  were  inclined  greatly  to  overrate 
their  importance  in  these  new  days  of  "democracy."  For- 
merly they  were  quite  content  to  be  addressed  as  "Kellner," 
and  their  chief  answered  with  alacrity  to  the  call  of  "Ober 
Kellner."  To-day  the  wise  diner  summons  the  most  humble 
of  the  serving  personnel  with  a  respectful,  gently  modulated 
"Herr  Ober.1' 

The  question  of  Schleichkandel,  or  food  trickery,  had 
grown  disturbing  all  over  Germany,  particularly  so  in  Berlin. 
It  is  undeniable  that  those  with  plenty  of  money  could  still 
get  enough  to  eat,  irrespective  both  of  the  law  and  of  the 
general  supply,  though  by  so  doing  they  abetted  profiteering, 
hoarding,  smuggling,  and  several  other  species  of  rascality. 
Perhaps  it  was  not  worth  while  for  the  government  to 
expend  its  energies  in  combating  the  illegal  traffic  in  food- 
stuffs, which,  compared  with  the  whole  problem,  was  a  minor 
matter  and  might  involve  a  struggle  with  the  most  influential 
citizens.  More  likely  the  higher  officials  feared  that  an 
honest  inquiry  would  disclose  their  own  bedraggled  skirts. 
The  newspapers  of  the  capital  teemed  with  such  paragraphs 
as  the  following : 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

SCHLEICHHANDEL  WITH  POTATOES 

In  the  past  two  months  not  only  has  underhand  dealing  become  far 
more  prevalent,  but  the  prices  of  articles  affected  by  it  have  greatly 
increased.  We  now  have  the  common  circumstance  that  wares  in  no 
way  to  be  had  legally  are  offered  openly  for  sale  in  Schleichhandel,  so 
that  the  expression  "Schleich"  (slippery,  underground)  is  no  longer  true. 
For  instance,  every  one  knows  to-day  the  price  of  butter  in  Schleichhandel, 
but  very  few  know  the  official  price.  The  government  has  sent  out  the 
following  notice : 

"The  Schleichhandel  in  potatoes  has  taken  on  an  impulse  that  makes 
the  furnishing  of  the  absolutely  necessary  potatoes,  officially,  very  seri- 
ously threatened.  From  many  communities,  especially  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  large  cities,  thousands  of  hundredweight  of  potatoes  are  car- 
ried away  daily  by  'hamsterers.'  At  present  the  authorities  are  chiefly 
contenting  themselves  with  confiscating  the  improperly  purchased 
wares,  without  taking  action  against  the  improper  purchasers.  A  better- 
ing of  the  situation  can  only  be  hoped  for  through  a  sharper  enforcement 
of  the  laws  and  decrees  concerning  food.  The  potato-protective  law  of 
July  1 8,  1918,  calls  for  a  punishment  of  a  year's  imprisonment  and  10,000 
marks  fine,  or  both.  For  all  illegal  carrying  off  of  food — and  in  this, 
of  course,  all  Schleichhandel  is  included — the  fine  must  equal  twenty 
times  the  value  of  the  articles." 

Yet  for  all  these  threats  Borchardt's  and  similar  estab- 
lishments went  serenely  on,  often  feeding,  in  all  probability, 
the  very  men  who  issued  these  notices. 

Of  ordinary  thievery  Germany  also  had  her  full  share. 
Every  better-class  hotel  within  the  Empire  displayed  the 
following  placard  in  a  prominent  position  in  all  rooms: 

The  honorable  guests  are  warned,  on  account  of  the  constantly  increas- 
ing thefts  of  clothing  and  footwear,  not  to  leave  these  articles  outside 
the  room,  as  was  formerly  the  custom,  for  cleaning,  but  to  hand  them 
over  personally  for  that  purpose  directly  to  the  employees  charged  with 
that  service,  since  otherwise  the  hotel  declines  any  responsibility  for 
the  loss  of  such  articles. 

VEREIN  OF  HOTEL  OWNERS. 

As  to  foodstuffs,  thefts  were  constant  and  attended  with 
every  species  of  trickery,  some  of  them  typically  German  in 

156 


"GIVE  US  FOOD!" 

their  complications.  Thieves  and  smugglers  on  the  large 
scale  were  particularly  fond  of  using  the  waterways  about 
the  capital.  One  night  the  boat-watch  on  the  Spree  detected 
a  vessel  loaded  with  fifty  hundredweight  of  sugar  slipping 
along  in  the  shadow  of  the  shore.  The  two  brothers  on 
board,  a  waiter  and  a  druggist,  announced  that  they  had 
bought  their  cargo  from  a  ship,  and  had  paid  five  thousand 
marks  for  it,  but  they  were  unable  to  explain  how  the  ship 
had  reached  Berlin.  They  planned  to  dispose  of  the  sugar 
privately,  "because  it  would  cause  fewer  complications." 
A  few  days  later  the  papers  announced : 

The  police  of  Berlin  report  that  not  only  native  foodstuffs,  but  our 
foreign  imports,  are  being  stolen.  American  flour  disappears  in  startling 
quantities.  Many  arrests  of  drivers  and  their  helpers  show  where  much 
of  it  goes.  It  is  stolen,  and  later  most  of  it  comes  into  Schleichhandel. 
The  drivers  who  take  the  flour  from  the  boats  to  the  bakers  are  too 
seldom  given  a  guardsman,  and  even  when  they  are  they  find  friends 
to  act  as  such  and  help  them  in  the  stealing.  Even  in  the  finest  weather 
the  driver  puts  a  tarpaulin  over  the  load,  and  his  accomplice  hides  him- 
self under  it.  There  he  fills  an  empty  bag  he  has  brought  along  by 
pawing  a  few  handfuls  out  of  each  sack  of  flour  and  sewing  them  up 
again.  Then  he  slips  into  some  tavern  along  the  way.  The  number  of 
sacks  remains  the  same,  and  as  our  bakers  are  not  familiar  with  the  full- 
ness of  American  flour  sacks,  hundred  of  hundredweight  of  flour  are  lost 
this  way  daily.  In  spite  of  many  arrests  the  stealing  continues. 

The  wildest  rumors  on  the  subject  of  food  were  current 
in  Berlin.  One  of  the  yellow  sheets  of  the  capital,  for  in- 
stance, appeared  one  evening  with  the  blatant  head-line, 
"GOAT  SAUSAGE  OF  CHILD  FLESH!"  asserting  that  many 
Berliners  were  unconsciously  indulging  in  cannibalism. 
"Where,"  shrieked  the  frenzied  article,  "are  those  one 
hundred  and  sixty -five  children  who  have  disappeared  from 
their  homes  in  Berlin  during  the  past  month,  and  of  whom 
the  police  have  found  no  trace?  Ask  the  sausage-makers 
of  one  of  our  worst  sections  of  town,  or  taste  more  carefully 

iS7 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

the  next  'goat  sausage'  you  buy  so  cheaply  in  some  of  our 
less  reputable  shops  and  restaurants  ..."  To  my  astonish- 
ment, I  found  no  small  number  of  the  populace  taking  this 
tale  seriously. 

I  have  it  from  several  officers  of  the  American  shipping 
board  that  affairs  were  still  worse  along  the  Kiel  Canal 
and  in  the  northern  ports  than  in  Berlin.  At  Emden,  where 
there  were  even  "vinegar  tickets,"  and  along  the  canal 
the  inhabitants  were  ready  to  sell  anything,  particularly 
nautical  instruments,  for  which  Germany  has  now  so  little 
use,  for  food — though  not  for  money.  Even  the  seagulls 
were  said  to  abandon  their  other  activities  to  follow  the 
American  flag  when  a  food-ship  came  into  port.  Stevedores 
sent  down  into  the  hold  broke  open  the  boxes  and  ate  flour 
and  lard  by  the  handful,  washing  it  down  with  condensed 
milk.  If  German  guards  were  placed  over  them,  the  only 
difference  was  that  the  guards  ate  and  drank  also.  Set 
American  sentries  over  them  and  the  stevedores  would  strike 
and  possibly  shoot.  What  remained  under  the  circum- 
stances but  to  let  them  battle  with  their  share  of  the  national 
hunger  in  their  own  indigestible  manner? 


VIII 

FAMILY   LIFE   IN   MECKLENBURG 

or  three  days  after  my  arrival  in  Berlin  I  might 
•*•  have  been  detected  one  morning  in  the  act  of  stepping 
out  of  a  wabbly-kneed  Droschke  at  the  Stettiner  Bahnhof 
soon  after  sunrise.  In  the  northernmost  corner  of  the 
Empire  there  lived — or  had  lived,  at  least,  before  the  war — 
a  family  distantly  related  to  my  own.  I  had  paid  them  a 
hurried  visit  ten  years  before.  Now  I  proposed  to  renew 
the  acquaintance,  not  only  for  personal  reasons,  but  out  of 
selfish  professional  motives.  The  exact  degree  of  war 
suffering  would  be  more  easily  measured  in  familiar  scenes 
and  faces;  moreover,  the  German  point  of  view  would  be 
laid  before  me  frankly,  without  any  mask  of  "propaganda" 
or  suspicion. 

Memories  of  France  had  suggested  the  possible  wisdom 
of  reaching  the  station  well  before  train-time.  I  might, 
to  be  sure,  have  purchased  my  ticket  in  leisurely  comfort 
at  the  Adlon,  but  for  once  I  proposed  to  take  pot-luck  with 
the  rank  and  file.  First-hand  information  is  always  much 
more  satisfactory  than  hearsay  or  the  dilettante  observa- 
tion of  the  mere  spectator — once  the  bruises  of  the  experience 
have  disappeared.  The  first  glimpse  of  the  station  interior 
all  but  wrecked  my  resolution.  Early  as  I  was,  there  were 
already  several  hundred  would-be  travelers  before  me. 
From  both  ticket-windows  lines  four  deep  of  disheveled 
Germans  of  both  sexes  and  all  ages  curved  away  into  the 

iS9 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY' 

farther  ends  of  the  station  wings.  Boy  soldiers  with  fixed 
bayonets  paraded  the  edges  of  the  columns,  attempting 
languidly  and  not  always  successfully  to  prevent  selfish 
new-comers  from  "butting  in "  out  of  their  turn.  I  attached 
myself  to  the  end  of  the  queue  that  seemed  by  a  few  inches 
the  shorter.  In  less  than  a  minute  I  was  jammed  into  a 
throng  that  quickly  stretched  in  S-shape  back  into  the 
central  hall  of  the  station. 

We  moved  steadily  but  almost  imperceptibly  forward, 
shuffling  our  feet  an  inch  at  a  time.  The  majority  of  my 
companions  in  discomfort  were  plainly  city  people  of  the 
poorer  classes,  bound  short  distances  into  the  country  on 
foraging  expeditions.  They  bore  every  species  of  receptacle 
in  which  to  carry  away  their  possible  spoils — hand-bags, 
hampers,  baskets,  grain-sacks,  knapsacks,  even  buckets 
and  toy  wagons.  In  most  cases  there  were  two  or  three  of 
these  to  the  person,  and  as  no  one  dreamed  of  risking  the 
precious  things  out  of  his  own  possession,  the  struggle  for- 
ward suggested  the  writhing  of  a  miscellaneous  scrap-heap. 
Women  were  in  the  majority — sallow,  bony-faced  creatures 
in  patched  and  faded  garments  that  hung  about  their  ema- 
ciated forms  as  from  hat-racks.  The  men  were  little  less 
miserable  of  aspect,  their  deep-sunk,  watery  eyes  testifying 
to  long  malnutrition;  the  children  who  new  and  then 
shrilled  protests  at  being  trodden  underfoot  were  gaunt  and 
colorless  as  corpses.  Not  that  healthy  individuals  were 
lacking,  but  they  were  just  that — individuals,  in  a  throng 
which  as  a  whole  was  patently  weak  and  anemic.  The 
evidence  of  the  scarcity  of  soap  was  all  but  overpowering. 
Seven  women  and  at  least  three  children  either  fainted  or 
toppled  over  from  fatigue  during  the  two  hours  in  which 
we  moved  a  few  yards  forward,  and  they  were  buffeted 
out  of  the  line  with  what  seemed  to  be  the  malicious  joy 
of  their  competitors  behind.  I  found  my  own  head  swim- 
ming long  before  I  had  succeeded  in  turning  the  corner 

1 60 


FAMILY  LIFE  IN  MECHLENBURG 

that  cut  off  our  view  of  the  pandemonium  at  the  ticket- 
window. 

At  eight-thirty  this  was  suddenly  closed,  amid  weak- 
voiced  shrieks  of  protest  from  the  struggling  column.  The 
train  did  not  leave  until  nine,  but  it  was  already  packed  to 
the  doors.  Soldiers,  and  civilians  with  military  papers, 
were  served  at  a  supplementary  window  up  to  the  last 
minute  before  the  departure.  The  disappointed  throng 
attempted  to  storm  this  wicket,  only  to  be  driven  back  at 
the  point  of  bayonets,  and  at  length  formed  in  column  again 
to  await  the  reopening  of  the  public  guichets  at  noon. 

The  conversation  during  that  three-hour  delay  was  inces- 
santly on  the  subject  of  food.  Some  of  it  was  good-natured ; 
the  overwhelming  majority  harped  on  it  in  a  dreary,  hope- 
less grumble.  Many  of  the  women,  it  turned  out,  were 
there  to  buy  tickets  for  their  husbands,  who  were  still  at 
work.  Some  had  spent  the  previous  day  there  in  vain.  I 
attempted  to  ease  my  wearying  legs  by  sitting  on  my  ham- 
per, but  querulous  protests  assailed  me  from  the  rear.  The 
gloomy  seekers  after  food  seemed  to  resent  every  inch  that 
separated  them  from  their  goal,  even  when  this  was  tem- 
porarily unattainable.  One  would  have  supposed  that  the 
order-loving  Germans  might  have  arranged  some  system  of 
numbered  checks  that  would  spare  such  multitudes  the 
necessity  of  squandering  the  day  at  unproductive  waiting 
in  line,  but  the  railway  authorities  seemed  to  be  overwhelmed 
by  the  "crisis  of  transportation." 

From  noon  until  one  the  struggle  raged  with  double  fury. 
The  boy  soldiers  asserted  their  authority  in  vain.  A  mere 
bayonet-prick  in  the  leg  was  apparently  nothing  compared 
with  the  gnawing  of  continual  hunger.  Individual  fights 
developed  and  often  threatened  to  become  general.  Those 
who  got  tickets  could  not  escape  from  the  crushing  maelstrom 
behind  them.  Women  were  dragged  unconscious  from  the 
fray,  often  feet  first,  their  skirts  about  their  heads.  The 

161 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

rear  of  the  column  formed  a  flying  wedge  and  precipitated 
a  free-for-all  fracas  that  swirled  vainly  about  the  window. 
When  this  closed  again  I  was  still  ten  feet  away.  I  con- 
cluded that  I  had  my  fill  of  pot-luck,  and,  buffeting  my 
way  to  the  outer  air,  purchased  a  ticket  for  the  following 
morning  at  the  Adlon. 

A  little  episode  at  my  departure  suggested  that  the  ever- 
obedient  German  of  Kaiser  days  was  changing  in  character. 
The  second-class  coach  was  already  filled  when  I  entered  it, 
except  that  at  one  end  there  was  an  empty  compartment, 
on  the  windows  of  which  had  been  pasted  the  word  "Be- 
stellt."  In  the  olden  days  the  mere  announcement  that  it 
was  "engaged"  would  have  protected  it  as  easily  as  bolts 
and  bars.  I  decided  to  test  the  new  democracy.  Crowding 
my  way  past  a  dozen  men  standing  obediently  in  the  corri- 
dor, I  entered  the  forbidden  compartment  and  sat  down. 
In  a  minute  or  two  a  seatless  passenger  put  his  head  in  at 
the  door  and  inquired  with  humble  courtesy  whether  it  was 
I  who  had  engaged  the  section.  I  shook  my  head,  and  a 
moment  later  he  was  seated  beside  me.  Others  followed, 
until  the  compartment  was  crowded  with  passengers  and 
baggage.  One  of  my  companions  angrily  tore  the  pasters 
from  the  windows  and  tossed  them  outside. 

"Bestellt  indeed!"  he  cried,  sneeringly.  "Perhaps  by  the 
Soldiers'  Council,  eh?  I  thought  we  had  done  away  with 
those  old  favoritisms!" 

A  few  minutes  later  a  station  porter,  in  his  major's  uni- 
form, appeared  at  the  door  with  his  arms  full  of  baggage 
and  followed  by  two  pompous-looking  men  in  silk  hats. 
At  sight  of  the  throng  inside  he  began  to  bellow  in  the 
familiar  old  before-the-war  style. 

"This  compartment  is  bestellt"  he  vociferated,  in  a  crown- 
princely  voice,  "and  it  remains  bestellt!  You  will  all  get 
out  of  there  at  once!" 

No  one  moved;  on  the  other  hand,  no  one  answered  back. 

162 


FAMILY  LIFE  IN  MECKLENBURG 

The  porter  fumed  a  bit,  led  his  charges  farther  down  the 
train,  and  perhaps  found  them  another  compartment;  at 
any  rate,  he  never  returned.  "Democracy"  had  won. 
Yet  through  it  all  I  could  not  shake  off  the  feeling  that 
if  any  one  with  a  genuinely  bold,  commanding  manner, 
an  old  army  officer,  for  instance,  decorated  with  all  the 
thingamabobs  of  his  rank,  had  ordered  the  compartment 
vacated,  the  occupants  would  have  filed  out  of  it  as  silently 
and  meekly  as  lambs. 

The  minority  still  ruled  in  more  ways  than  one.  A  placard 
on  the  wall,  forbidding  the  opening  of  a  window  without 
the  unanimous  consent  of  the  passengers  within  the  com- 
partment, was  strictly  obeyed.  The  curtains  had  long 
since  disappeared,  as  had  the  leather  straps  with  which  one 
raised  or  lowered  the  sash,  which  must  now  be  manipulated 
by  hand.  As  in  the  occupied  zone,  the  seats  had  been 
stripped  of  their  velvety  coverings,  suggesting  that  this 
had  been  no  special  affront  to  the  Allies,  but  merely  a  sign 
of  the  scarcity  of  cloth  for  ladies'  blouses.  It  was  a  cloudless 
Sunday,  and  railway  employees  along  the  way  were  taking 
advantage  of  it  to  work  in  their  little  vegetable  gardens, 
tucked  into  every  available  corner.  They  did  not  neglect 
their  official  duties,  however,  for  all  that.  At  every  grade 
crossing  the  uniformed  guard  stood  stiffly  at  attention,  his 
furled  red  flag  held  like  a  rifle  at  his  side,  until  the  last  coach 
had  passed. 

At  Spandau  there  lay  acre  upon  acre  of  war  material  of 
every  species,  reddening  with  rust  and  overgrowing  with 
grass  and  weeds.  The  sight  of  it  aroused  a  few  murmurs  of 
discontent  from  my  companions.  But  they  soon  fell  back 
again  into  that  apathetic  silence  that  had  reigned  since  our 
departure.  A  few  had  read  awhile  the  morning  papers, 
without  a  sign  of  feeling,  though  the  head-lines  must  have 
been  startling  to  a  German,  then  laid  them  languidly  aside. 
Apparently  the  lack  of  nourishing  food  left  them  too  sleepy 
12  163 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

to  talk.  The  deadly  apathy  of  the  compartment  was  quite 
the  antithesis  of  what  it  would  have  been  in  France;  a 
cargo  of  frozen  meat  could  not  have  been  more  uncom- 
municative. 

The  train  showed  a  singular  languor,  due  perhaps  to  its 
Ersatz  coal.  It  got  there  eventually,  but  it  seemed  to  have 
no  reserve  strength  to  give  it  vigorous  spells.  The  station 
we  should  have  passed  at  noon  was  not  reached  until  one- 
thirty.  Passengers  tumbled  off  en  masse  and  besieged  the 
platform  lunch-room.  There  were  Ersatz  coffee,  Ersatz 
cheese,  watery  beer,  and  war-bread  for  sale,  the  last  only 
"against  tickets."  I  had  not  yet  been  supplied  with  bread- 
coupons,  but  a  fellow-passenger  tossed  me  a  pair  of  them 
and  replied  to  my  thanks  with  a  silent  nod.  The  nauseating 
stuff  seemed  to  give  the  traveler  a  bit  of  surplus  energy. 
They  talked  a  little  for  the  next  few  miles,  though  in  dreary, 
apathetic  tones.  One  had  recently  journeyed  through  the 
occupied  area,  and  reported  "every  one  is  being  treated 
fairly  enough  there,  especially  by  the  Americans."  A 
languid  discussion  of  the  Allies  ensued,  but  though  it  was 
evident  that  no  one  suspected  my  nationality,  there  was  not 
a  harsh  word  toward  the  enemy.  Another  advanced  the 
wisdom  of  "seeing  Germany  first,"  insisting  that  the  sons 
of  the  Fatherland  had  been  too  much  given  to  running  about 
foreign  lands,  to  the  neglect  of  their  own.  Those  who  car- 
ried lunches  ate  them  without  the  suggestion  of  an  offer 
to  share  them  with  their  hungry  companions,  without  even 
the  apologetic  pseudo-invitation  of  the  Spaniard.  Then 
one  by  one  they  drifted  back  to  sleep  again. 

The  engine,  too,  seemed  to  pick  up  after  lunch — or  to 
strike  a  down-grade — and  the  thatched  Gothic  roofs  of 
Mechlenburg  soon  began  to  dot  the  flat  landscape.  More 
people  were  working  in  the  fields;  cattle  and  sheep  were 
grazing  here  and  there.  Groups  of  women  came  down  to 
the  stations  to  parade  homeward  with  their  returning  soldier 

164 


FAMILY  LIFE  IN  MECKLENBURG 

sons  and  brothers.  Yet  after  the  first  greeting  the  unsuc- 
cessful warriors  seemed  to  tire  of  the  welcome  and  strode 
half  proudly,  half  defiantly  ahead,  while  the  women  dropped 
sadly  to  the  rear. 

Where  I  changed  cars,  four  fellow-travelers  reached  the 
station  lunch-room  before  me  and  every  edible  thing  was 
bestellt  when  my  turn  came.  With  three  hours  to  wait  I 
set  out  along  the  broad,  well-kept  highway.  A  village  hotel 
served  me  a  huge  P/annkuchen  made  of  real  eggs,  a  few 
cold  potatoes,  and  some  species  of  preserved  fruit,  but 
declined  to  repeat  the  order.  The  bill  reached  the  lofty 
heights  of  eight  marks.  Children  playing  along  the  way, 
and  frequently  groups  of  Sunday  strollers,  testified  that 
there  was  more  energy  for  unnecessary  exertion  here  in 
the  country  than  in  Berlin.  The  flat,  well-plowed  land, 
broken  only  by  dark  masses  of  forest,  was  already  giving 
promise  of  a  plentiful  harvest. 

The  two  women  in  the  compartment  I  entered  at  a  station 
farther  on  gave  only  one  sign  of  life  during  the  journey. 
A  railway  coach  on  a  siding  bore  a  placard  reading,  ' '  Uber- 
gabe  Wagen  an  die  Entente."  The  women  gazed  at  it  with 
pained  expressions  on  their  gaunt  faces. 

"It's  a  fine  new  car,  too,"  sighed  one  of  them,  at  last, 
"with  real  leather  and  window-curtains.  We  don't  get 
any  such  to  ride  in — and  to  think  of  giving  it  to  England! 
Ach!  These  are  sad  times !" 

The  sun  was  still  above  the  horizon  when  I  reached 
Schwerin,  though  it  was  nearly  nine.  There  was  a  signif- 
icant sign  of  the  times  in  the  dilapidated  coach  which  drove 
me  to  my  destination  for  five  marks.  In  the  olden  days 
one  mark  would  have  been  considered  a  generous  reward  for 
the  same  journey  in  a  spick-and-span  outfit.  The  middle- 
aged  woman  who  met  me  at  the  door  was  by  no  means  the 
buxom  matron  she  had  been  ten  years  before.  But  her 
welcome  was  none  the  less  hearty. 

165 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

"Bist  du  auch  gegen  uns  gewesen?"  she  asked,  softly,  after 
her  first  words  of  greeting.  "You,  too,  against  us? " 

"Yes,  I  was  with  our  army  in  France,"  I  replied,  watch- 
ing her  expression  closely. 

There  was  regret  in  her  manner,  yet,  as  I  had  foreseen, 
not  the  faintest  suspicion  of  resentment.  The  German  is 
too  well  trained  in  obedience  to  government  to  dream  that 
the  individual  may  make  a  choice  of  his  own  international 
affairs.  As  long  as  I  remained  in  the  household  there  was 
never  a  hint  from  any  member  of  it  that  the  war  had  made 
any  gulf  between  us.  They  could  not  have  been  more  friendly 
had  I  arrived  wearing  the  field  gray  of  the  Fatherland. 

A  brief  glance  about  the  establishment  sufficed  to  settle 
once  for  all  the  query  as  to  whether  the  civil  population 
of  Germany  had  really  suffered  from  the  ravages  of  war 
and  of  the  blockade.  The  family  had  been  market-gardeners 
for  generations.  Ten  years  before  they  had  been  prosperous 
with  the  solid,  material  prosperity  of  the  well-to-do  middle 
class.  In  comparison  with  their  neighbors  they  were  still  so, 
but  it  was  a  far  call  from  the  plenitude  of  former  days  to 
the  scarcity  that  now  showed  its  head  on  every  hand.  The 
establishment  that  had  once  been  kept  up  with  that  pride 
of  the  old-fashioned  German  as  for  an  old  family  heirloom, 
which  laughs  at  unceasing  labor  to  that  end,  was  every- 
where sadly  down  at  heel.  The  house  was  shedding  its 
ancient  paint;  the  ravages  of  weather  and  years  gazed 
down  with  a  neglected  air ;  the  broken  panes  of  glass  in  the 
hotbeds  had  not  been  replaced;  farm  wagons  falsely  sug- 
gested that  the  owner  was  indifferent  to  their  upkeep;  the 
very  tools  had  all  but  outlived  their  usefulness.  Not  that 
the  habit  of  unceasing  labor  had  been  lost.  The  family 
sleeping-hours  were  still  from  ten  to  four.  But  the  war 
had  reduced  the  available  helping  hands  and  the  blockade 
had  shut  out  materials  and  supplies,  or  forced  them  up  to 
prices  which  none  but  the  wealthy  could  reach. 

166 


FAMILY  LIFE  IN  MECKLENBURG 

Inside  the  house,  particularly  in  the  kitchen,  the  family 
had  been  reduced  to  almost  as  rudimentary  a  life  as  the 
countrymen  of  Venezuela,  so  many  were  the  every-day 
appliances  that  had  been  confiscated  or  shut  off  by  the  war- 
time government,  so  few  the  foodstuffs  that  could  be 
obtained.  Though  other  fuel  was  almost  unattainable, 
gas  could  only  be  had  from  six  to  seven,  eleven  to  twelve, 
and  seven  to  eight.  Electricity  was  turned  on  from  dark 
until  ten-thirty,  which  at  that  season  of  the  year  meant 
barely  an  hour.  Petroleum  or  candles  were  seldom  to  be 
had.  All  the  better  utensils  had  long  since  been  turned 
in  to  the  government.  When  I  unearthed  a  bar  of  soap 
from  my  baggage  the  family  literally  fell  on  my  neck;  the 
only  piece  in  the  house  was  about  the  size  of  a  postage- 
stamp,  and  had  been  husbanded  for  weeks.  Vegetables 
were  beginning  to  appear  from  the  garden;  without  them 
there  would  have  been  little  more  than  water  and  salt  to 
cook.  In  theory  each  adult  member  of  the  household 
received  125  grams  of  beef  a  week;  in  practice  they  were 
lucky  to  get  that  much  a  month.  What  that  meant 
in  loss  of  energy  I  began  to  learn  by  experience;  for  a 
mere  three  days  without  meat  left  me  weary  and  ambition- 
less.  Those  who  could  bring  themselves  to  eat  it  might 
get  horse-flesh  in  the  markets,  without  tickets,  but  even 
that  only  in  very  limited  quantities.  The  bread,  "made 
of  potatoes,  turnips,  and  God  knows  what  all  they  throw 
into  it,"  was  far  from  sufficient.  Though  the  sons  and 
daughters  spent  every  Sunday  foraging  the  country-side,  they 
seldom  brought  home  enough  to  make  one  genuine  meal. 

The  effect  of  continued  malnutrition  seemed  to  have  been 
surprisingly  slight  on  those  in  the  prime  of  life.  The 
children  of  ten  years  before,  men  and  women  now,  were 
plump  and  hardy,  though  the  color  in  their  cheeks  was 
by  no  means  equal  even  to  that  of  the  grandfather — sleep- 
ing now  in  the  churchyard — at  the  time  of  my  former  visit. 

167 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

Of  the  two  granddaughters  the  one  born  three  years  before, 
when  the  blockade  was  only  beginning  to  be  felt  in  these 
backwaters  of  the  Empire,  was  stout  and  rosy  enough; 
but  her  sister  of  nine  months  looked  pitifully  like  the  waxen 
image  of  a  maltreated  infant  of  half  that  age.  The  simple- 
hearted,  plodding  head  of  the  household,  nearing  sixty, 
had  shrunk  almost  beyond  recognition  to  those  who  had 
known  him  in  his  plump  and  prosperous  years,  while  his 
wife  had  outdistanced  even  him  in  her  decline. 

Business  in  the  market-gardening  line  had  fallen  off 
chiefly  because  of  the  scarcity  of  seeds  and  fertilizers.  Then 
there  was  the  ever  more  serious  question  of  labor.  Old 
women  who  had  gladly  accepted  three  marks  for  toiling 
from  dawn  until  dark  ten  years  before  received  eleven 
now  for  scratching  languidly  about  the  gardens  a  bare 
eight  hours  with  their  hoes  and  rakes.  Male  help  had 
begun  to  drift  back  since  the  armistice,  but  it  was  by  no 
means  equal  to  the  former  standard  in  numbers,  strength, 
or  willingness.  On  top  of  all  this  came  a  crushing  burden  of 
taxation.  When  all  the  demands  of  the  government  were 
reckoned  up  they  equaled  40  per  cent,  of  the  ever-decreas- 
ing income.  The  war  had  brought  one  advantage,  though 
it  was  as  nothing  compared  to  the  misfortunes.  For  gen- 
erations two  or  three  members  of  the  family  had  spent 
six  mornings  a  week,  all  summer  long,  at  the  market-place 
in  the  heart  of  town.  Since  the  fall  of  1914  not  a  sprig  of 
produce  had  been  carried  there  for  sale;  clamoring  women 
now  besieged  the  gate  of  the  establishment  itself  in  far 
greater  numbers  than  the  gardens  could  supply. 

The  hardship  of  the  past  four  years  was  not  the  pre- 
vailing topic  of  conversation  in  the  household,  however, 
nor  when  the  subject  was  forced  upon  them  was  it  treated 
in  a  whining  spirit.  Most  of  the  family,  like  their  neighbors, 
adroitly  avoided  it,  as  a  proud  prize-fighter  might  sidestep 
references  to  the  bruises  of  a  recent  beating.  Only  the 

168 


FAMILY  LIFE  IN  MECKLENBURG 

mother  could  now  and  then  be  drawn  into  specifying  details 
of  the  disaster. 

"Do  you  see  the  staging  around  our  church  there?"  she 
asked,  drawing  me  to  a  window  one  morning  after  I  had 
persisted  some  time  in  my  questions.  "They  are  replacing 
with  an  Ersatz  metal  the  copper  that  was  taken  from  the 
steeple  and  the  eaves.  Even  the  bells  went  to  the  cannon- 
foundries,  six  of  them,  all  but  the  one  that  is  ringing  now. 
I  never  hear  it  without  thinking  of  an  orphan  child  crying 
in  the  woods  after  all  the  rest  of  its  family  has  been  eaten 
by  wolves.  Ach!  What  we  have  not  sacrificed  in  this 
fight  to  save  the  Fatherland  from  our  wolfish  enemies! 
We  gave  up  our  gold  and  our  silver,  then  our  nickel  and 
our  copper,  even  our  smallest  pots  and  pans,  our  alumi- 
num and  our  lead,  our  leather  and  our  rubber,  down  to  the 
last  bicycle  tire.  The  horses  and  the  cows  are  gone,  too — I 
have  only  goats  to  milk  now.  Then  the  struggles  I  have  had 
to  keep  the  family  clothed!  Cloth  that  used  to  cost  fifty 
pfennigs  a  meter  has  gone  up  to  fifteen  marks,  and  we  can 
scarcely  find  any  of  that.  Even  thread  is  sold  only  against 
tickets,  and  we  are  lucky  to  get  a  spool  a  month.  We  are 
far  better  off  than  the  poor  people,  too,  who  can  only  afford 
the  miserable  stuff  made  of  paper  or  nettles.  America  also 
wants  to  destroy  us;  she  will  not  even  send  us  cotton. 
And  the  wicked  Schleichhandel  and  profiteering  that  go 
on!  Every  city  has  a  hotel  or  two  where  you  can  get  any- 
thing you  want  to  eat — if  you  can  pay  for  it.  Yet  our  honest 
tickets  are  often  of  no  use  because  rascals  have  bought  up 
everything  at  wicked  prices.  If  we  do  not  get  food  soon 
even  this  Handarbeiter  government  will  recommence  war 
against  France,  surely  as  you  are  sitting  there.  The  young 
men  are  all  ready  to  get  up  and  follow  our  generals.  The 
new  volunteer  corps  are  taking  on  thousands  every  day. 
Ach!  The  sufferings  of  these  last  years!  And  now  our 
cruel  enemies  expect  our  poor  brave  prisoners  to  rebuild 

169 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

Europe.    But  then,  I  have  no  right  to  complain.    At  least 
my  dear  own  boy  was  not  taken  from  me." 

The  son,  whom  we  will  call  Heinrich,  I  had  last  seen 
as  a  child  in  knickerbockers.  Now  he  was  a  powerful,  two- 
fisted  fellow  of  twenty-one,  with  a  man's  outlook  on  life. 
Having  enlisted  as  a  Freiwilliger  on  his  sixteenth  birthday, 
at  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  he  had  seen  constant  service  in 
Russia,  Rumania,  and  in  all  the  hottest  sectors  of  the 
western  front,  had  been  twice  wounded,  twice  decorated 
with  those  baubles  with  which  princes  coax  men  to  die  for 
them,  and  had  returned  home  with  the  highest  non-com- 
missioned rank  in  the  German  army.  What  struck  one 
most  forcibly  was  the  lack  of  opportunity  offered  such  men 
as  he  by  their  beloved  Fatherland.  In  contrast  with  the 
positions  that  would  have  been  open  to  so  promising  a 
youngster,  with  long  experience  in  the  command  of  men,  in 
America,  he  had  found  nothing  better  than  an  apprentice- 
ship in  the  hardware  trade,  paying  forty  marks  for  the 
privilege  and  bound  to  serve  three  long  years  without  pay. 
Like  nearly  all  the  young  men  in  town,  from  grocery  clerks 
to  bankers'  sons,  he  still  wore  his  uniform,  stripped  of  its 
marks  of  rank,  not  out  of  pride,  but  because  civilian  clothing 
was  too  great  a  luxury  to  be  indulged,  except  on  Sundays. 
I  was  surprised,  too,  at  the  lack  of  haughtiness  which  I  had 
fancied  every  soldier  of  Germany  felt  for  his  calling.  When 
I  made  some  casual  remark  about  the  gorgeous  spiked  hel- 
met he  had  worn,  with  its  Prussian  and  Mechlenburger 
cockades,  which  I  took  for  granted  he  would  set  great  store 
by  to  the  ends  of  his  days,  he  tossed  it  toward  me  with: 
"Here,  take  the  thing  along,  if  you  want  it.  It  will  make  a 
nice  souvenir  of  your  visit."  When  I  coaxed  him  outdoors 
to  be  photographed  in  his  two  iron  crosses,  he  would  not  put 
them  on  until  we  had  reached  a  secluded  corner  of  the  garden, 
because,  as  he  explained,  the  neighbors  might  think  he  was 
boastful. 

170 


FAMILY  LIFE  IN  MECKLENBURG 

"I  should  gladly  have  died  for  the  Fatherland,"  he 
remarked,  as  he  tossed  the  trinkets  back  into  the  drawer 
full  of  miscellaneous  junk  from  which  he  had  fished  them, 
"if  only  Germany  had  won  the  war.  But  not  for  this! 
Not  I,  with  no  other  satisfaction  than  the  poor  fellows  we 
buried  out  there  would  feel  if  they  could  sit  up  in  their 
graves  and  look  about  them." 

There  were  startling  changes  in  the  solemn,  patriarchal 
attitude  toward  life  which  I  had  found  so  amusing,  yet  so 
charming,  in  the  simple  people  of  rural  Germany  at  the  time 
of  my  first  visit.  The  war  seemed  to  have  given  a  sad 
jolt  to  the  conservative  old  customs  of  former  days,  particu- 
larly among  the  young  people.  Perhaps  the  most  tangible 
evidence  of  this  fact  was  to  see  the  daughters  calmly  light 
cigarettes,  while  the  sternly  religious  father  of  ten  years 
before,  who  would  then  have  flayed  them  for  sneezing  in 
church,  looked  idly  on  without  a  sign  of  protest.  They  were 
still  at  bottom  the  proper  German  Frduleins  of  the  rural 
middle  class — though  as  much  could  not  be  said  of  all  the 
sex  even  in  respectable  old  Schwerin — but  on  the  surface 
there  were  many  of  these  little  tendencies  toward  the 
Leichtsinnig. 

When  it  came  to  discussions  of  the  war  and  Germany's 
conduct  of  it,  I  found  no  way  in  which  we  could  get  together. 
We  might  have  argued  until  doomsday,  were  it  fitting  for  a 
guest  to  badger  his  hosts,  without  coming  to  a  single  point 
of  agreement.  Every  one  of  the  old  fallacies  was  still  swal- 
lowed, hook  and  line.  If  I  had  expected  national  disaster 
to  bring  a  change  of  heart,  I  should  have  been  grievously 
disappointed.  To  -be  sure,  Mechlenburg  is  one  of  the 
remotest  backwaters  of  the  Empire,  and  these  laborious, 
unimaginative  tillers  of  the  soil  one  of  its  most  conservative 
elements.  They  would  have  considered  it  unseemly  to 
make  a  business  of  thinking  for  themselves  in  political 
matters,  something  akin  to  accepting  a  position  for  which 

171 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

they  had  no  previous  training.  There  was  that  to  arouse 
pity  in  the  success  with  which  the  governing  class  had 
made  use  of  this  simple,  unquestioning  attitude  for  its  own 
ends.  One  felt  certain  that  these  honest,  straightforward 
victims  of  premeditated  official  lies  would  never  have  lent 
a  helping  hand  had  they  known  that  the  Fatherland  was 
engaged  in  a  war  of  conquest  and  not  a  war  of  defense. 

Here  again  it  was  the  mother  who  was  most  outspoken 
toward  what  she  called  "the  wicked  wrecking  of  poor, 
innocent  Germany."  The  father  and  the  children  expressed 
themselves  more  calmly,  if  at  all,  though  it  was  evident 
that  their  convictions  were  the  same.  Apparently  they 
had  reached  the  point  where  further  defense  of  what  they 
regarded  as  the  plain  facts  of  the  situation  seemed  a  waste 
of  words. 

"I  cried  when  the  armistice  was  signed,"  the  mother 
confided  to  me  one  day,  "for  it  meant  that  our  enemies 
had  done  what  they  set  out  to  do  many  years  ago.  They 
deliberately  planned  to  destroy  us,  and  they  succeeded. 
But  they  were  never  able  to  defeat  our  wonderful  armies 
in  the  field.  England  starved  us,  otherwise  she  would 
never  have  won.  Then  she  fostered  this  Bolshevismus  and 
Spartakismus  and  the  wicked  revolution  that  undermined 
us  at  the  rear.  But  our  brave  soldiers  at  the  front  never 
gave  way:  they  would  never  have  retreated  a  yard  but  for 
the  breakdown  at  home." 

She  was  a  veritable  mine  of  stories  of  atrocities  by  the 
English,  the  French,  and  especially  the  Russians,  but  she 
insisted  there  had  never  been  one  committed  by  the  Germans. 

"Our  courageous  soldiers  were  never  like  that,"  she  pro- 
tested. "They  did  not  make  war  that  way,  like  our 
heartless  enemies." 

Yet  in  the  same  breath  she  rambled  on  into  anecdotes 
of  what  any  one  of  less  prejudiced  viewpoint  would  have 
called  atrocities,  but  which  she  advanced  as  examples  of 

172 


FAMILY  LIFE  IN  MECKLENBURG 

the  fighting  qualities  of  the  German  troops.  There  again 
came  in  that  curious  German  psychology,  or  mentality,  or 
insanity,  or  whatever  you  choose  to  call  it,  which  has  always 
astounded  the  world  at  large.  "Heinie"  had  seen  the 
hungry  soldiers  recoup  themselves  by  taking  food  away 
from  the  wicked  Rumanians;  he  had  often  told  how  they 
entered  the  houses  and  carried  away  everything  portable 
to  sell  to  the  Jews  at  a  song,  that  the  next  battle  should 
not  find  them  unprepared.  The  officers  had  just  pretended 
they  did  not  see  the  men,  for  they  could  not  let  them  go 
unfed.  They  had  taken  things  themselves,  too,  especially 
the  reserve  officers.  But  then,  war  is  war.  If  only  I 
could  get  "Heinie"  to  tell  some  of  the  things  he  had  seen 
and  heard;  how,  for  instance,  the  dastardly  Russians  had 
screamed  when  they  were  pushed  back  into  the  marshes, 
whole  armies  of  them. 

I  found  more  interest  in  "Heinie's"  stories  of  the  insuper- 
able difficulties  he  had  overcome  as  a  Feldwebel  in  keeping 
up  the  discipline  of  his  men  after  the  failure  of  the  last  great 
German  offensive,  but  I  did  not  press  that  point  in  her 
presence. 

"No,"  she  went  on,  in  answer  to  another  question,  "the 
Germans  never  did  anything  against  women.  Those  are  all 
English  lies!  Heinie  never  told  me  of  a  single  case" — 
"Heinie"  was,  of  course,  no  more  apt  to  tell  mother  such 
details  than  would  one  of  the  well-bred  boys  of  our  own 
Puritan  society,  but  I  kept  the  mental  comment  to  myself. 
"Of  course  there  were  those  shameless  Polish  girls,  and 
French  and  Belgian  hussies,  who  gave  themselves  freely 
to  the  soldiers,  but.  .  . 

' '  Certainly  the  Kaiser  will  come  back, ' '  she  insisted.  ' '  We 
need  our  Kaiser;  we  need  princes,  to  govern  the  Empire. 
What  are  Ebert  and  all  that  crowd?  Handarbeiter,  hand 
workers,  and  nothing  more.  It  is  absurd  to  think  that  they 
can  do  the  work  of  rulers.  We  need  our  princes,  who  have 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

had  generations  of  training  in  governing.  Siehst  du,  I  will 
give  you  an  example.  We  have  been  Handelsgartner  for 
generations.  Hermann  knows  all  about  the  business  of 
gardening,  because  he  was  trained  to  it  as  a  boy,  nicht  wahr? 
Do  you  think  a  man  who  had  never  planted  a  cabbage 
could  come  and  do  Hermann's  work?  Ausgeschlossen! 
Well,  it  is  just  as  foolish  for  a  Handarbeiter  like  Ebert  to 
attempt  to  become  a  ruler  as  it  would  be  for  one  of  our 
princes  to  try  to  run  Hermann's  garden. 

"Germany  is  divided  into  three  classes — the  rulers,  the 
middle  class  (to  which  we  belong),  and  the  proletariat  or 
hand-workers,  which  includes  Ebert  and  all  these  new 
upstarts.  It  is  ridiculous  to  be  getting  these  distinctions 
all  mixed  up.  Leave  the  governing  to  the  princes  and 
their  army  officers  and  the  Junkers.  We  use  the  nickname 
'Junker'  for  our  noble  gentlemen,  von  Bernstorff,  for 
instance,  who  is  well  known  in  America,  and  all  the  others 
who  have  a  real  right  to  use  the  'von'  before  their  names, 
whose  ancestors  were  first  highway  robbers  and  then  bold 
warriors,  and  who  are  naturally  very  proud" — she  evidently 
thought  this  pride  quite  proper  and  fitting.  ' '  Then  our  army 
officers  are  chosen  from  the  very  best  families  and  can 
marry  only  in  the  gelehrten  class,  and  only  then  if  the  girl 
has  a  dowry  of  at  least  eight  hundred  thousand  marks. 
So  they  preserve  all  the  nobility  of  their  caste  down  through 
every  generation  and  keep  themselves  quite  free  from 
middle-class  taint — the  real  officers  I  am  speaking  of, 
not  the  Reservisten,  who  are  just  ordinary  middle-class  men, 
merchants  and  doctors  and  teachers  and  the  like,  acting 
as  officers  during  the  war.  Those  are  the  men  who  are 
trained  to  govern,  and  the  only  ones  who  can  govern." 

I  knew,  of  course,  that  the  great  god  of  class  was  still 
ruling  in  Germany,  but  I  confess  that  this  bald  statement 
of  that  fact  left  me  somewhat  flabbergasted.  It  is  well 
to  be  reminded  now  and  again,  however,  that  the  Teuton 


w  & 

=  w 

H   O 


td  w 

ffl   Q 


«  o 


u  5 


H  O 


-   b 
O  O 


THE  GERMAN  SOLDIER  IS  NOT  ALWAYS  SAVAGE  OF  FACE 


THE   GERMAN'S  ARTISTIC   SENSE  LEADS   HIM  TO  OVERDECORATE   EVEN   HIS 

MERRY-GO-ROUNDS 


FAMILY  LIFE  IN  MECKLENBURG 

regards  politics,  diplomacy,  and  government  as  lifelong 
professions  and  not  merely  as  the  fleeting  pastimes  of 
lawyers,  automobile-makers,  and  unsuccessful  farmers;  it 
clarifies  our  vision  and  aids  us  to  see  his  problems  more 
nearly  as  he  sees  them. 

Several  rambles  in  and  about  Schwerin  only  confirmed  the 
impressions  I  had  already  formed — that  the  region  was 
hopelessly  conservative  and  that  it  had  really  seriously 
suffered  from  the  war  and  the  blockade.  On  the  surface 
there  was  often  no  great  change  to  be  seen;  but  scratch 
beneath  it  anywhere  and  a  host  of  social  skeletons  was  sure 
to  come  to  light.  Even  the  famous  old  Schweriner- 
schloss,  perhaps  the  most  splendid  castle  in  Germany, 
showed  both  this  conservatism  and  the  distress  of  the  past 
years.  The  repairs  it  was  undergoing  after  a  recent  fire 
had  ceased  abruptly  with  the  flight  of  the  reigning  family 
of  Mechlenburg,  but  the  marks  of  something  more  serious 
than  the  conflagration  showed  in  its  seedy  outward  appear- 
ance. Yet  not  a  chair  had  been  disturbed  within  it,  for 
all  the  revolution,  and  guards  stationed  about  it  by  the 
Soldiers'  Council  protected  it  as  zealously  as  if  they,  too, 
were  waiting  for  "our  princes"  to  come  back  again.  Almost 
the  only  sign  of  the  new  order  of  things  was  the  sight  of  a 
score  or  more  of  discharged  soldiers  calmly  fishing  in  the 
great  Schwerinersee  about  the  castle,  a  crime  that  would 
have  met  with  summary  vengeance  in  the  old  ducal  days. 

Rumor  having  it  that  the  peace  terms  were  to  be  pub- 
lished that  afternoon,  I  hastily  took  train  one  morning 
back  to  Berlin,  that  I  might  be  in  the  heart  of  the  uproar 
they  were  expected  to  arouse.  At  the  frontier  of  Mech- 
lenburg soldiers  of  the  late  dukedom  went  carefully  through 
passengers'  baggage  in  search  of  food,  particularly  eggs, 
of  which  a  local  ordinance  forbade  the  exportation.  The 
quest  seemed  to  be  thorough  and  I  saw  no  tips  passed,  but 
there  was  considerable  successful  smuggling,  which  came 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

to  light  as  soon  as  the  train  was  well  under  way  again. 
A  well-dressed  merchant  beside  me  boastfully  displayed  a 
twenty-mark  sausage  in  the  bottom  of  his  innocent-looking 
hand-bag,  and  his  neighbors,  not  to  be  outdone  in  proof  of 
cleverness,  showed  their  caches  of  edibles  laboriously  con- 
cealed in  brief-cases,  hat-boxes,  and  laundry-bags. 

"The  peasants  have  grown  absolutely  shameless,"  it  was 
agreed.  "They  have  the  audacity  to  demand  a  mark  or 
more  for  a  single  egg,  and  twenty  for  a  chicken" — in  other 
words,  the  rascals  had  turned  upon  the  bourgeois  some 
of  his  own  favorite  tricks,  taking  advantage  of  conditions 
which  these  same  merchants  would  have  considered  legiti- 
mate sources  of  profit  in  their  own  business.  Wrath  against 
the  "conscienceless"  countrymen  was  unlimited,  but  no 
one  thought  of  shaming  the  smugglers  for  their  cheating. 

The  contrast  between  the  outward  courtesy  of  these 
punctilious  examples  of  the  well-to-do  class  and  their  total 
lack  of  real,  active  politeness  was  provoking.  A  first-class 
compartment  had  been  reserved  for  a  sick  soldier  who  was 
plainly  on  his  last  journey,  with  a  comrade  in  attendance. 
Travelers  visibly  able  to  stand  in  the  corridor  crowded 
in  upon  him  until  the  section  built  for  six  held  thirteen, 
and  forced  the  invalid  to  crouch  upright  in  a  corner.  Women 
were  rudely,  almost  brutally,  refused  seats,  unless  they 
were  pretty,  in  which  case  they  were  overwhelmed  with 
fawning  attentions. 

A  discussion  of  America  broke  out  in  the  compartment 
I  occupied.  It  resembled  an  exchange  of  opinions  on  the 
character  of  some  dear  friend  of  the  gathering  who  had 
inadvertently  committed  some  slight  social  breach.  There 
was  not  a  word  at  which  the  most  chauvinistic  of  my  fellow- 
countrymen  could  have  taken  offense.  When  I  had  listened 
for  some  time  to  the  inexplicable  expressions  of  affection 
for  the  nation  that  had  turned  the  scales  against  their 
beloved  Fatherland,  I  discarded  my  incognito.  My  com- 

176 


FAMILY  LIFE  IN  MECKLENBURG 

panions  acknowledged  themselves  surprised,  then  redoubled 
their  assertions  of  friendliness.  Was  their  attitude  a  mere 
pose,  assumed  on  the  chance  of  being  heard  by  some  repre- 
sentative of  the  country  they  hoped  to  placate?  It  seemed 
unlikely,  for  they  had  had  no  reason  to  suspect  my  national- 
ity. I  decided  to  overstep  the  bounds  of  veracity  in  the 
hope  of  getting  at  their  real  thoughts,  if  those  they  were 
expressing  were  merely  assumed. 

"I  said  I  am  an  American,"  I  broke  in,  "but  do  not  mis- 
understand me.  We  Chileans  are  quite  as  truly  Americans 
as  those  grasping  Yankees  who  have  been  fighting  against 
you." 

To  my  astonishment,  the  entire  group  sprang  instantly 
to  the  defense  of  my  real  countrymen  as  against  those  I  had 
falsely  adopted.  All  the  silly  slanders  I  had  once  heard  in 
Chile  they  discarded  as  such,  and  advanced  proofs  of 
Yankee  integrity  which  even  I  could  not  have  assembled. 

"You  Chileans  have  nothing  to  fear  from  American 
aggression,"  the  possessor  of  the  twenty-mark  sausage 
concluded,  reassuringly,  as  the  rumble  of  the  train  crossing 
the  Spree  set  us  to  gathering  our  traps  together.  "The 
North  Americans  are  a  well-meaning  people;  but  they  are 
young,  and  England  and  France  have  led  them  temporarily 
astray,  though  they  have  not  succeeded  in  corrupting  their 
simple  natures." 


IX 

THUS   SPEAKS   GERMANY 

T  EST  he  talk  all  the  pleasure  out  of  the  rambles  ahead, 
"  let  us  get  the  German's  opinion  of  the  war  cleared  up 
before  we  start,  even  if  we  have  to  reach  forward  now  and 
then  for  some  of  the  things  we  shall  hear  on  the  way.  I 
propose,  therefore,  to  give  him  the  floor  unreservedly  for 
a  half -hour,  without  interruption,  unless  it  be  to  throw  in  a 
question  now  and  then  to  make  his  position  and  his  some- 
times curious  mental  processes  clearer.  The  reader  who 
feels  that  the  prisoner  at  the  bar  is  not  entitled  to  tell  his 
side  of  the  story  can  easily  skip  this  chapter. 

Though  I  did  not  get  it  all  from  any  one  person — no  resi- 
dent of  the  Fatherland  talked  so  long  in  the  hungry  armistice 
days — the  German  point  of  view  averaged  about  as  follows. 
There  were  plenty  of  variations  from  this  central  line,  and  I 
shall  attempt  to  show  the  frontier  of  these  deviations  as 
we  go  along.  We  shall  probably  not  find  this  statement 
of  his  point  of  view  very  original;  most  of  his  arguments 
we  have  heard  before,  chiefly  while  the  question  of  our 
coming  or  not  coming  into  the  war  was  seething.  Fifteen 
years  ago,  when  I  first  visited  him  at  home,  I  did  not  gather 
the  impression  that  every  German  thought  alike.  To-day 
he  seems  to  reach  the  same  conclusions  by  the  same  curious 
trains  of  thought,  no  matter  what  his  caste,  profession, 
experience,  and  to  some  extent  his  environment — for  even 
those  who  remained  far  from  the  scene  of  conflict  during 

178 


THUS  SPEAKS  GERMANY 

all  the  war  seem  to  have  worked  themselves  into  much  the 
same  mental  attitude  as  their  people  at  home.  But  then, 
this  is  also  largely  true  of  his  enemies,  among  whom  one 
hears  almost  as  frequently  the  tiresome  repetition  of  the 
same  stereotyped  conclusions  that  have  in  some  cases  been 
deliberately  manufactured  for  public  consumption.  One 
comes  at  times  to  question  whether  there  is  really  any  gain 
nowadays  in  running  about  the  earth  gathering  men's 
opinions,  for  they  so  often  bear  the  factory-made  label, 
the  trade-mark  of  one  great  central  plant,  like  the  material 
commodities  of  our  modern  industrial  world.  The  press, 
the  cable,  the  propagandist,  and  the  printer  have  made  a 
thinking-machine,  as  Edison  has  made  a  talking-machine, 
and  Burroughs  a  mechanical  arithmetic. 

The  first,  of  course,  if  not  the  burning  question  of  the 
controversy  was,  who  started  the  war,  and  why?  The 
German  at  home  showed  a  certain  impatience  at  this  query, 
as  a  politician  might  at  a  question  that  he  had  already 
repeatedly  explained  to  his  constituents.  But  with  care 
and  perseverance  he  could  usually  be  drawn  into  the  dis- 
cussion, whereupon  he  outlined  the  prevailing  opinion, 
with  such  minor  variations  as  his  slight  individuality  per- 
mitted; almost  always  without  heat,  always  without  that 
stone-blind  prejudice  that  is  so  frequent  among  the  Allied 
man  in  the  street.  Then  he  fell  into  apathetic  silence  or 
harked  back  to  the  ever-present  question  of  food.  But 
let  him  tell  it  in  his  own  way. 

"The  war  was  started  by  circumstances.  War  had  be- 
come a  necessity  to  an  over-prosperous  world,  as  bleeding 
sometimes  becomes  necessary  to  a  fat  person.  Neither  side 
was  wholly  and  deliberately  guilty  of  beginning  it,  but 
if  there  is  actual  personal  guilt,  it  is  chiefly  that  of  the 
Allies,  especially  England.  We  understand  the  hatred  of 
France.  It  came  largely  from  fear,  though  to  a  great 
extent  unnecessary  fear.  The  ruling  party  in  Russia 
13  179 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

wanted  war,  wanted  it  as  early  as  1909,  for  without  it  they 
would  have  lost  their  power.  It  was  a  question  of  interior 
politics  with  them.  But  with  England  there  was  less 
excuse.  In*  her  case  it  was  only  envy  and  selfishness ;  the 
petty  motives  that  sprout  in  a  shopkeeper's  soul.  We  were 
making  successful  concurrenz  against  her  in  all  the  mar- 
kets of  the  world — though  by  our  German  word  'con- 
currenz' we  mean  more  than  mere  commercial  com- 
petition; she  saw  herself  in  danger  of  losing  the  hegemony 
of  Europe,  her  position  as  the  most  important  nation  on  the 
globe.  She  set  out  deliberately  to  destroy  us,  to  vernichten, 
to  bring  us  to  nothing.  We  hate" — though  come  to  think 
of  it  I  do  not  recall  once  having  heard  a  German  use  the 
word  hate  in  describing  his  own  feelings,  nor  did  I  run 
across  any  reference  to  the  notdrious  "Hymn  of  Hate" 
during  all  my  travels  through  the  Empire — "we  dislike, 
then,  we  blame  England  most,  for  it  was  she  more  than 
any  other  one  party  in  the  controversy  who  planned  and 
nourished  it.  How?  By  making  an  Entente  against  us 
that  surrounded  us  with  a  steel  wall;  by  bolstering  up  the 
revanche  feeling  in  France;  by  urging  on  the  ruling  class 
in  Russia;  by  playing  on  the  dormant  brutality  of  the 
Russian  masses  and  catering  to  the  natural  fanaticism 
of  the  French,  deliberately  keeping  alive  their  desire  to 
recover  Alsace-Lorraine.  Edward  VII  set  the  ball  rolling 
with  his  constant  visits  to  Paris." 

"I  had  much  intercourse  and  correspondence  with  French- 
men before  the  war,"  said  a  German  professor  of  European 
history,  "and  I  found  a  willingness  among  those  of  my 
own  generation,  those  between  thirty  and  fifty,  to  drop  the 
matter,  to  admit  that,  after  all,  Alsace-Lorraine  was  as  much 
German  as  French.  Then  some  ten  years  ago  I  began  to 
note  a  change  of  tone.  The  younger  generation  was  being 
pumped  full  of  the  revanche  spirit  from  the  day  they  started 
to  school;  in  foreign  countries  every  French  text-book  in- 

180 


THUS  SPEAKS  GERMANY 

cited  crocodile  tears  over  the  poor  statue  of  Strassburg, 
with  its  withered  flowers.  It  was  this  younger  generation 
that  brought  France  into  the  war — this  and  Clemenceau, 
who  is  still  living  back  in  1870." 

"But  the  despatches,  the  official  state*  papers  already  pub- 
lished, show  that  England  was  doing  her  best  to  avoid  ..." 

"Oh,  you  simple  Americans!  You  do  not  seem  to- realize 
that  such  things  are  made  for  foreign  consumption,  made 
to  sell,  to  flash  before  a  gaping  world,  to  publish  in  the 
school-books  of  the  future,  not  for  actual  use,  not  to  be 
seriously  believed  by  the  experienced  and  the  disillusioned. 
That  has  been  the  story  of  European  politics  for  centuries, 
since  long  before  you  dear,  naive  people  came  into  existence. 
You  are  like  a  new-comer  dropping  into  a  poker  game  that 
has  been  going  on  since  long  before  you  learned  to  dis- 
tinguish one  card  from  another.  You  do  not  guess  that 
the  deck  is  pin-pricked  ancf  that  every  kind  of  underhand 
trick  is  tacitly  allowed,  so  long  as  the  player  can  'get  away 
with  it.'  Now  if  we  could  get  the  really  secret  papers  that 
passed  back  and  forth,  especially  if  we  could  get  what  went 
on  in  private  conversation  or  'way  inside  the  heads  of  Grey 
and  the  rest  of  them  ..." 

"Yes,  but — you  will  pardon  my  naivete^  I  am  sure — 
but  if  England  had  long  deliberately  planned  a  European 
war,  why  did  she  have  nothing  but  a  contemp — but  a  very 
small  arrriy  ready  when  it  broke  out?" 

"Because  she  expected,  as  usual,  to  have  some  one  else 
do  her  fighting  for  her.  And*  she  succeeded !  When  they 
were  almost  burned  beyond  recovery  she.  got  America  to 
pull  her  chestnuts  out  of  the  fire — and  now  America  does 
not  even  get  enough  out  of  it  to  salve  her  scorched  fingers. 
But  for  America  we  should  have  won  the  war,  unquestion- 
ably. But  England  has  lost  it,  in  a  way,  too,  for  she  has 
been  forced  to  let  America  assume  the  most  important  place 
in  the  world.  You  will  have  a  war  with  England  your- 

181 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

selves  for  that  very  reason  in  a  few  years,  as  soon  as  she 
catches  her  breath  and  discovers  you  at  the  head  of  the 
table,  in  the  seat  which  she  has  so  long  arrogated  to  herself. 
You  will  be  her  next  victim — with  Japan  jumping  on  your 
back  the  moment  it  is  turned. 

"Yes,  in  one  sense  Germany  did  want  war.  She  had  to 
have  it  or  die,  for  the  steel  wall  England  had  been  forging 
about  her  for  twenty  years  was  crushing  our  life  out  and 
had  to  be  broken.  Then,  too,  there  was  one  party,  the 
'Old  Germans' — what  you  call  the  Junkers — that  was  not 
averse  to  such  a  contest.  The  munition-makers  wanted 
war,  of  course;  they  always  do.  Some  of  our  generals" — 
Ludendorff  was  the  name  most  frequently  heard  in  this 
connection;  Hindenburg  never — "wanted  it.  But  it  is 
absurd  to  accuse  the  Kaiser  of  starting  it,  simply  because 
he  was  the  figurehead,  the  most  prominent  bugaboo,  a 
catchword  for  the  mob.  The  Hohenzollerns  did  us  much 
damage;  but  they  also  brought  us  much  good.  The  Kaiser 
loved  peace  and  did  all  in  his  power  to  keep  it.  He  was  the 
only  emperor — we  were  the  only  large  nation  that  had  waged 
no  war  or  stolen  no  territory  since  1871.  But  the  English- 
French-Russian  combination  drove  us  into  a  corner.  We 
had  to  have  the  best  army  in  the  world,  just  as  England 
has  to  have  the  best  navy.  We  had  no  world-conquering 
ambitions;  we  had  no  'Drang  nach  Osten,'  which  our  enemies 
have  so  often  charged  against  us,  except  for  trade.  Our 
diplomats  were  not  what  they  should  have  been ;  Bethmann- 
Hollweg  has  as  much  guilt  as  any  one  in  the  whole  affair, 
on  our  side.  We  have  had  no  real  diplomats,  except  von 
Bulow,  since  Bismarck.  But  the  Germans  as  a  nation 
never  wanted  war.  The  Kaiser  would  not  have  declared  it 
even  when  he  did  had  he  not  feared  that  the  Social  Demo- 
crats would  desert  him  in  the  crisis  if  it  were  put  off  longer. 
We  had  only  self -protection  as  our  war  aim  from  the  begin- 
ning, but  we  did  not  dare  openly  say  so  for  fear  the  enemy, 

182 


THUS  SPEAKS  GERMANY 

which  had  decided  on  our  annihilation,  would  take  it  as  an 
admission  of  weakness." 

This  whitewashing  of  the  Kaiser  was  universal  in  Ger- 
many, as  far  as  my  personal  experience  goes.  No  one, 
whatever  his  age,  sex,  caste,  place  of  residence,  or  political 
complexion,  accused  him  of  being  more  than  an  accessory 
before  the.  fact.  The  most  rabid — pardon,  I  never  heard  a 
German  speak  rabidly  on  any  subject,  unless  it  was  perhaps 
the  lack  of  food  and  tobacco — the  most  decidedly  monarchi- 
cal always  softened  any  criticism  of  the  ex-emperor  with  the 
footnote  that  he,  after  all,  was  not  chiefly  to  blame.  His 
bad  counselors,  the  force  of  circumstances  over  which  he 
had  little  control  .  .  .  and  so  on.  Then  there  were  those, 
particularly,  though  not  entirely,  in  the  back-waters  of 
Prussia,  the  women  especially,  who  gazed  after  his  retreated 
figure  pityingly,  almost  tearfully,  as  if  he  had  been  the 
principal  sufferer  from  the  catastrophe. 

Nor  did  I  ever  hear  any  German,  not  even  a  Socialist  of 
the  extremest  left,  not  even  a  Bavarian,  admit  that  Ger- 
many was  wholly  in  the  wrong.  Once  only  did  I  hear  a  man 
go  so  far  as  to  assert  that  Germany  had  at  least  half  the 
guilt  of  the  war.  He  was  a  stanch-minded,  rather  con- 
servative Socialist  living  in  the  Polish  atmosphere  of  Brom- 
berg.  On  the  other  hand,  citizens  of  the  Allied  countries, 
who  had  dwelt  in  Germany  since  1914,  were  all  more  or 
less  firm  converts  to  the  England-France-Russia  theory. 
Such  is  the  power  of  environment.  An  English  governess, 
who  had  lost  a  brother  in  the  war  and  who  was  returning 
home  for  the  first  time  since  it  began,  expressed  the  fear 
that  she  would  soon  be  compelled  to  return  to  Germany 
to  preserve  her  peace  of  mind.  A  few  laid  the  blame 
entirely  to  Russia;  some  charged  it  all  to  "the  Jews," 
implying  a  rather  extraordinary  power  on  the  part  of  the 
million  or  so  of  that  race  within  the  Empire. 

Now  and  then  one  ran  across  a  simple  old  countryman 

183 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

who  took  his  opinions  wholly  and  unreservedly  as  they  had 
been  delivered  to  him,  without  ever  having  opened  the 
package.  "How  did  it  start?  Why,  let's  see.  They 
killed  some'  prince  down  in  ...  somewhere  or  other,  I 
never  can  reniember  these  foreign  names,  and  his  wife,  too, 
if  I  remember,  and  then. Russia  ..."  and  so  on.  He  was 
of  the  same  class  as  those  who  asserted,  "I  don't  know 
when  gas  was  first  used,  or  just  where,  but  it  was  by  the 
wicked  French — or  was  it  the  scoundrelly  English?"  But 
these  simple,  swallow-it-whole  yokels  were  on  the  whole 
more  rare  than  they  would  have  been  in  many  another 
land.  However  much  we  may  sneer  at  her  Kultur,  the 
Kaiser  regime  brought  to  the  most  distant  corners  of  the 
Empire  a  certain  degree  of  instruction,  even  if  it  was  only 
of  a  deliberately  Teutonic  brand.  In  the  great  majority 
of  cases  one  was  astounded  at  the  clear,  comprehensive, 
and,  within  limits,  unprejudiced  view  of  all  the  field  of 
European  politics  of  many  a  peasant  grubbing  out  his 
existence  on  a  remote  hillside.  More  than  one  of  them 
could  have  exchanged  minds  with  some  of  our  national 
officials  to  the  decided  advantage  of  the  latter.  My  memory 
still  harks  back  to  the  tall,  ungainly  farmer  in  whose  lowly 
little  inn  I  spent  the  last  night  of  my  German  tramp,  a 
man  who  had  lived  almost  incessantly  in  the  trenches 
during  all  the  war,  and  returned  home  still  a  ' '  simple  soldier, ' ' 
who  topped  off  a  sharp,  clear-cut  expose  of  the  politics 
of  Europe  for  the  past  half -century  with:  "Who  started  it? 
Listen.  Suppose  a  diligent,  sober,  hard-working  mechanic 
is  engaged  on  the  same  job  with  an  arrogant,  often  careless, 
and  sometimes  intoxicated  competitor.  Suppose  the  com- 
petitor begins  to  note  that  if  things  go  on  as  they  are  the 
sober  mechanic  will  in  time  be  given  all  the  work,  for  being 
the  more  efficient,  or  that  there  will  come  a  time  when, 
thanks  to  his  diligence,  there  will  be  no  work  left  for  either 
of  them.  If  the  rowdy  suddenly  strikes  his  rival  a  foul 

184 


THUS  SPEAKS  GERMANY 

blow  in  the  back  when  he  is  not  looking  and  the  hard- 
worker  drops  his  tools  and  strikes  back,  who  started  it?" 

On  the  conduct  of  the  war  there  was  as  nearly  unanimity 
of  opinion  as  on  its  genesis.  "The  Russians  and  the  French, 
secretly  sustained  by  England,  invaded  Germany  first. 
William" — they  call  him  that  almost  as  often  as  the  Kaiser 
now — "who  was  the  only  important  ruler  who  had  not 
declared  war  in  more  than  forty  years,  gave  them  twelve 
hours  to  desist  from  their  designs;  they  refused,  and  the 
war  went  on.  Had  we  planned  to  go  to  war  we  should 
certainly  have  passed  the  tip  to  the  millions  of  Germans 
in  foreign  lands  in  time  for  them  to  have  reached  Germany. 
You  yourself  have  seen  how  they  poured  down  to  the  ports 
when  they  heard  of  the  Fatherland's  danger,  and  how 
regretfully  they  returned  to  their  far-off  duties  when  it 
became  apparent  that  England  was  not  going  to  let  them 
come  home.  Then  we  went  through  Belgium.  We  should 
not  have  done  so,  of  course,  but  any  people  would  have 
done  the  same  to  protect  its  national  existence.  Besides, 
we  offered  to  do  so  peacefully;  the  stubborn  Belgians 
would  not  have  suffered  in  the  slightest.  And  Belgium 
had  a  secret  treaty  with  the  Entente  that  would  have  per- 
mitted them  to  attack  us  from  that  side  ..."  and  so  on. 

"Moral  guilt?  Not  the  slightest.  As  we  feel  no  guilt 
whatever  for  starting  the  war — because  we  did  not  start  it — 
so  we  feel  none  for  any  of  the  ways  in  which  we  waged  it. 
The  U-boats?  What  was  our  drowning  of  a  few  silly  pas- 
sengers who  insisted  on  traveling  compared  with  what  the 
British  were  doing  in  starving  our  women  and  children, 
our  entire  nation?"  (The  old  specious  argument  about  the 
warning  not  to  take  the  Lusitania  was  still  frequently 
heard.)  "We  had  to  use  U-boats  or  starve.  A  hysterical 
world  blamed  us  for  the  more  dramatic  but  by  far  the  less 
wicked  of  two  weapons.  Drowning  is  a  pleasant  death 
compared  with  starvation.  War  is  war.  But  it  was  a  very 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

stupid  mistake  on  the  part  of  old  fool  Tirpitz."    (The 

admiral  probably  had  his  whiskers  pulled  more  often, 
figuratively,  than  any  other  man  in  the  Empire.  True, 
he  was  almost  the  only  German  left  who  felt  capable  of  still 
nourishing  so  luxurious  an  adornment.  But  the  U-boat 
policy  had  very  few  partizans  left.)  "Moral  guilt,  most 
certainly  not.  But  it  was  the  height  of  asininity.  If  he 
had  had  ten  times  as  many  U-boats,  yes,  by  all  means. 
But  not  when  it  brought  in  America  and  still  failed  to  break 
the  blockade.  If  the  U-boat  fans  had  not  insisted  on  their 
program  the  war  would  have  been  over  in  1916.  But 
America  would  probably  have  come  in,  anyway;  there  were 
her  loans  to  the  Allies,  and  the  munitions  she  furnished 
them.  America,  we  suspect,  was  chiefly  interested  in  her 
interest." 

To  all  charges  of  unfair  methods  of  warfare,  of  tyranny 
over  the  civilian  population,  of  atrocities,  Germany  replied 
with  an  all-embracing:  "You're  another."  "If  we  first 
used  gas" — which  by  no  means  all  Germans  admitted — 
"think  of  those  dreadful  tanks!  If  we  bombed  London  and 
Paris,  see  how  our  dear  brethren  along  the  Rhine  suffered 
from  your  airmen.  If  we  were  forced  to  be  stern  with  the 
population  of  the  occupied  regions,  go  hear  what  the  Rus- 
sians did  in  our  eastern  provinces.  You  make  martyrs 
of  your  Cavells  and  Fryatts;  we  can  name  you  scores  of 
Germans  who  suffered  worse  far  more  unjustly.  As  to 
accusing  us  of  wanton  atrocities,  that  has  become  one  of  the 
recognized  weapons  of  modern  warfare,  one  of  the  tricks 
of  the  game,  this  shouting  of  calumnies  against  your  gagged 
enemy  to  a  keenly  listening  audience  not  averse  to  feeding 
on  such  morbid  morsels.  It  was  accepted  as  a  recognized 
misdeal  in  the  political  poker  game  as  far  back  as  the  Boer 
War,  when  the  science  of  photography  first  reached  the 
advanced  stage  that  made  it  possible  to  show  English 
soldiers  catching  on  their  bayonets  babies  that  had  never 

186 


THUS   SPEAKS  GERMANY 

been  within  a  hundred  miles  of  them.  Like  all  the  under- 
hand moves,  it  was  immensely  improved  or  perfected  dur- 
ing this  long  life-and-death  struggle.  That  was  one  of  the 
things  we  somewhat  neglected,  first  from  lack  of  foresight, 
later  because  of  the  impossibility  of  making  ourselves 
heard  by  the  audience,  of  getting  it  across  the  footlights, 
while  our  enemies  screened  the  whole  front  of  the  stage. 
Ninety  per  cent,  of  the  so-called  atrocities  were  made  out  of 
whole  cloth,  or  out  of  very  slight  remnants.  We  admit  the 
cleverness  of  the  other  side  in  'getting  away  with  it,'  but 
now  that  it  has  served  its  purpose  we  expect  him,  if  he  is 
the  fair  sportsman  he  pretends,  to  acknowledge  it  was  only 
a  trick,  at  least  as  soon  as  the  smoke  and  heat  of  action  have 
cleared  a  bit."  (This  view  was  widely  held  among  citizens 
of  Allied  nations  who  have  traveled  in  Germany  since  the 
signing  of  the  armistice,  though  few  of  them  admitted  it 
except  in  private  conversation.)  "There  were,  of  course, 
things  that  should  not  have  been.  There  are  in  all  armies; 
there  have  been  in  all  wars,  and  always  will  be.  But  if 
some  of  our  soldiers  forgot  themselves,  if  our  reserve  officers 
were  not  always  of  the  high  standard  their  position  called 
for,  let  us  tell  you  of  some  of  the  horrible  things  the  Russians 
perpetrated  in  our  eastern  provinces" — somehow  Germany 
always  seemed  to  flee  eastward  when  this  question  of 
atrocities  came  up. 

"One  of  our  greatest  mistakes  was  the  failure  to  realize 
the  value  of  reclame,  of  publicity,  propaganda,  advertising, 
or  whatever  you  choose  to  call  it,  until  it  was  too  late." 
(Berlin  was  showing  one  of  our  great  "Hun"  pictures  in 
her  principal  cinemas  at  the  time  of  my  visit,  partly  for  the 
amusement  of  seeing  themselves  as  others  see  them,  but 
chiefly  as  an  example  of  how  they  "missed  a  bet"  in  not 
discovering  how  the  "movies"  could  also  be  "mobilized" 
for  war  ends.)  "The  United  States  was  finally  led  astray 
and  brought  into  the  war  chiefly  because  England  and 

187 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

France  made  skilful  use  of  propaganda,  because  they  con- 
trolled the  great  avenues  of  the  transmission  of  news.  It 
looks  like  a  silly,  childish  little  trick  for  the  Allies  to  take 
our  cables  away  from  us — along  with  our  milch  cows — 
but  it  is  really  very  important,  for  they  keep  on  telling 
unrefuted  lies  about  us  as  long  as  it  serves  their  purposes. 
Now  that  they  have  a  clear  field,  they  will  discolor  the 
facts  more  than  ever.  They  censored,  doctored  their  pub- 
lic prints  far  more  than  we  did.  See  how  they  dare  not 
even  yet  publish  the  terms  of  the  treaty  that  was  handed 
us  at  Versailles ;  yet  we  have  had  them  here  in  Germany  for 
days.  Even  the  French  Chamber  and  the  American  Senate 
got  them  first  from  our  papers.  Open  diplomacy  indeed! 
There  never  was  a  time  during  the  war  that  French  and 
English  and,  when  we  could  get  them,  American  papers 
could  not  be  bought  at  any  kiosk  in  our  larger  cities.  Look 
at  Haase,  who  publishes  daily  the  strongest  kind  of  attacks 
on  the  government,  quite  openly,  while  the  newspapers  of 
Paris  are  still  sprinkled  with  the  long  white  hoofprints  of 
the  censor. 

"We  admit  our  fault — and  we  are  now  paying  for  it. 
This  publicity  was  one  of  the  'perfectly  legitimate'  moves 
in  the  crooked  game  of  war,  one  of  the  cleverest  of  the 
tricks,  and  we  overlooked  it,  thanks  to  the  thick  heads  of 
our  diplomats!  It  was  perhaps  the  deciding  factor.  The 
English  with  their  shopkeeper  souls;  the  French,  crudely 
materialistic  under  their  pretended  love  of  art;  the  traitor- 
ous Italians — were  not  equal  all  together  to  downing  us. 
But  when  they  succeeded  in  talking  over  America,  a  great 
big  healthy  child  overtopping  them  all,  naive,  inexperienced, 
rather  flattered  at  being  let  into  a  man's  game,  somewhat 
hysterical" — I  am  putting  things  a  bit  more  baldly  than  I 
ever  heard  them  stated,  but  that  is  what  was  meant — 
"we  might  have  known  it  was  all  over  with  us.  Now  we  are 
in  a  pretty  predicament.  We  have  no  national  wealth  left, 

188 


THUS  SPEAKS  GERMANY 

except  our  labor,  for  we  have  given  up  everything  else. 
We  cannot  even  emigrate — except  to  Russia.  My  children 
will  see  a  great  combination  with  them,  unless  this  Bol- 
shevism sweeps  all  before  it  now  while  the  bars  are  down. 

"But  we  were  never  defeated  militarily.  Ausgeschlossen! 
We  won  the  war — on  the  field  of  battle,  such  a  war  as  was 
never  before  waged  against  a  nation  in  all  history.  That 
is  what  makes  our  real  defeat  so  bitter.  America  did  it, 
with  her  unlimited  flood  of  materials,  her  endless  resources, 
plus  the  hunger  blockade.  With  the  whole  world  against 
us  and  starvation  undermining  us  at  the  rear,  what  was  left 
for  us?  But  we  still  held  our  front;  our  line  never  cracked. 
The  German  army  was  the  best  in  the  world — to-day  the 
American  is — its  discipline  was  strict,  but  there  was  a  rea- 
son, centuries  of  experience,  behind  every  command.  But 
the  war  lasted  too  long;  we  got  overtrained,  went  stale 
and  .  .  ." 

No  German,  from  the  mouth  of  the  Elbe  to  the  mountains 
of  Bavaria,  admitted  for  an  instant  that  his  army  was 
defeated.  Whatever  their  other  opinions,  the  Boches  in- 
sisted on  hugging  to  themselves  the  cold  conviction  that 
they  were  beaten  from  within,  never  by  a  foreign  enemy. 
They  seemed  almost  fond  of  boasting  that  it  took  America 
with  her  boundless  resources  to  turn  the  scales  against 
them.  But  they  were  not  always  consistent  in  this  view, 
for  they  admitted  that  with  the  failure  of  the  last  offen- 
sive they  knew  the  game  was  up;  they  admitted  that 
Hindenburg  himself  asserted  that  the  side  that  succeeded 
in  bringing  up  the  last  half-million  fresh  troops  would  win 
the  war.  In  this  connection  it  may  be  of  interest  to  hear 
what  the  German  Staff  (American  Intelligence  Section) 
thought  of  the  American  army.  "The  United  States  en- 
listed men,"  runs  their  statement,  "were  excellent  soldiers. 
They  took  battle  as  an  adventure  and  were  the  best  shock 
troops  of  the  war  when  it  ended.  Their  officers  were  good 

189 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

up  to  and  sometimes  through  battalion  commanders;  above 
that  they  were  astonishingly  weak." 

Throughout  all  Germany  the  proposed  peace  terms  were 
received  in  much  the  same  spirit  they  had  been  in  Berlin. 
Outwardly  they  were  greeted  with  surprising  calmness, 
almost  apathy.  But  one  could  find  protests  and  to  spare 
by  knowing  where  to  listen.  "This  peace  is  even  less  open 
and  fair  than  that  of  the  Congress  of  Vienna,"  came  the 
first  returns.  "We  expected  to  lose  some  territory  in  the 
east,  perhaps,  but  that  Alsace-Lorraine  should  be  allowed 
to  vote  which  of  us  she  cared  to  join,  that  'self-determina- 
tion' of  which  Wilson  has  spoken  so  much.  Both  of  those 
provinces  always  belonged  to  Germany,  except  for  the 
hundred  years  between  the  time  Louis  XIV  stole  them  from 
us  and  Bismarck  won  them  back;  they  belonged  to  Ger- 
many just  as  much  as  Poland  ever  did  to  the  Poles.  Lor- 
raine may  want  to  be  French;  Alsace  certainly  does  not, 
and  never  did." 

It  seemed  to  be  the  old  men  who  resented  most  the  loss 
of  territory,  as  the  women  were  most  savage  in  their  expres- 
sions. Probably  grandfather  would  miss  the  far  corner 
lot  more  than  would  the  younger  members  of  the  family, 
who  had  not  been  accustomed  to  seeing  it  so  long.  When 
one  could  get  the  Germans  to  specify,  they  rated  the  pro- 
posed terms  about  as  follows:  "The  loss  of  the  Saar  is  the 
worst;  the  losses  in  the  east,  second;  the  loss  of  our  colonies, 
third."  But  they  reminded  one  of  a  man  who  has  just 
returned  home  and  found  his  house  wrecked — the  farther 
he  looks  the  more  damage  he  discovers;  at  each  new  dis- 
covery he  gasps  a  bit  more  chokingly,  and  finally  stands 
dumb  before  the  immensity  of  the  catastrophe  that  has 
befallen  him,  for  some  time  undecided  just  what  his  next 
move  shall  be.  "We  would  rather  pay  any  amount  of 
indemnity  than  lose  territory,"  they  went  on,  at  last.  "It 
is  a  crime  to  occupy  the  Rhineland,  the  richest,  most  tax- 

igo 


THUS  SPEAKS  GERMANY 

able,  the  most  freedom-loving  part  of  Germany.  And  now 
they  are  trying  to  steal  that  from  us  in  addition !  The  Allies 
are  trying  to  Balkanize  us.  They  do  not  want  money  from 
us;  they  want  to  vernichten  us,  to  destroy  us  completely. 
The  immense  majority  of  the  people  of  the  Rhineland  do  not 
want  to  abandon  us;  they  are  loyal  to  the  Empire.  But 
the  French  have  the  upper  hand  now;  they  protect  the  few 
self-seekers  who  are  riding  it  over  the  loyal  masses;  the 
British  are  willing  and  the  Americans  are  simple  enough 
to  believe  that  the  republic  that  is  to  have  its  capital  in 
Coblenz  represents  the  desires  of  the  majority.  Never! 
The  Catholics  and  the  capitalists  combined  to  form  the 
Rhine  Republic,  with  the  aid  of  the  French — because  they 
could  thus  both  have  more  power  for  themselves."  (How 
true  this  statement  may  be  I  can  only  judge  from  the 
fact  that  a  very  small  minority  of  those  I  questioned  on  the 
subject  while  with  the  Army  of  Occupation  expressed  any 
desire  to  see  the  region  separated  from  Germany,  and  that  I 
found  virtually  no  sentiment  for  abandoning  the  Empire 
in  any  portion  whatever  of  unoccupied  Germany.) 

"Then  these  new  frontiers  in  the  east  were  set  by  men 
who  know  the  conditions  there  only  from  books,  not  from 
being  on  the  spot,  or  at  best  by  men  who  were  misinformed 
by  the  stupid  or  biased  agents  they  sent.  Thus  many 
towns  almost  wholly  inhabited  by  Germans  are  now  to  be 
given  to  the  Poles,  and  vice  versa."  As  to  the  proposed 
punishment  of  the  Kaiser,  though  there  seemed  to  be  very 
little  love  and  no  great  loyalty — except  in  acquitting  him 
on  the  score  of  beginning  the  war — left  for  him  among  the 
great  mass  of  the  people,  this  clause  aroused  as  great  wrath 
as  any.  The  German  saw  in  it  a  matter  of  national  honor. 

Such  anger  as  the  peace  terms  aroused  was,  of  course, 
chiefly  poured  out  upon  President  Wilson.  "We  believed 
in  Wilson  and  he  betrayed  us,"  protested  a  cantankerous 
old  man.  "Wilson  told  us  that  if  we  chased  the  Hohenzol- 

191 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

lerns  out  he  would  'treat  us  right';  we  did  so,  and  now  look 
what  he  has  gone  and  done  to  us !  He  has  led  us  to  slaughter, 
and  all  the  time  we  thought  he  was  leading  us  out  of  the 
wilderness.  He  has  grossly  betrayed  us.  People  put  too 
much  faith  in  him.  I  never  did,  for  I  always  considered  his 
lean  face  the  mask  of  hypocrisy,  not  the  countenance  of 
justice  and  idealism.  We  Germans,  with  few  exceptions, 
believed  him  to  be  a  noble  character,  whereas  he  is  operated 
by  strings  in  the  hands  of  the  American  capitalists,  like 
the  puppets  the  children  at  the  Guignol  mistake  for  living 
people."  "Only  the  capitalists,"  cried  a  motorman,  "led  by 
Wilson,  had  any  say  in  this  treaty.  Your  Wilson  and  his 
capitalists  are  far  worse  tyrants  than  the  Kaiser  ever  aspired 
to  be  in  his  wildest  moments. "  "  Wilson  leads  the  capitalists 
of  the  world  against  Socialism,  against  socialistic  Germany, 
which  they  fear  far  more  than  they  ever  did  a  military 
Germany,"  asserted  the  Majority-Socialist  papers. 

On  the  other  hand  there  were  Germans  who  stanchly 
defended  Wilson,  taking  an  unprejudiced,  scientific  view 
of  the  entire  question,  as  they  might  of  the  fourth  dimension 
or  of  the  Bacon-Shakespeare  controversy.  These  were 
apt  to  bring  their  fellow-countrymen  up  with  a  round  turn 
by  asserting  that  Wilson  never  promised  to  make  peace  with 
Germany  based  on  his  Fourteen  Points.  Ah,  those  Four- 
teen Points!  If  they  had  been  bayonets  I  should  have 
resembled  a  sieve  long,  long  before  my  journey  was  ended. 

"We  Germans  can  look  at  the  problem  from  both  sides," 
insisted  one  such  open-minded  professor,  "because  we 
are  more  liberal  than  the  Allies,  because  we  travel,  we  do 
business  in  all  parts  of  the  world.  We  have  advanced 
beyond  the  stage  of  melodrama,  of  believing  that  all  right, 
all  good  is  on  one  side  and  the  contrary  on  the  other. 
The  Frenchman  rarely  leaves  home,  the  Englishman  never 
changes  his  mind  when  he  does — he  has  it  set  in  cement 
for  safety's  sake  before  he  starts.  The  American  is  too 

192 


THUS  SPEAKS  GERMANY 

young  to  be  able  to  look  frankly  at  a  question  from  both 
sides." 

"Militarism,"  said  a  mason  who  had  one  crippled  leg 
left,  yet  who  chatted  with  me  in  an  equally  friendly  manner 
both  before  and  after  he  had  learned  my  nationality,  "was 
our  national  sport,  as  football  is  in  England,  and  whatever 
you  play  most  is  in  America.  Now  we  have  discovered 
that  it  is  not  a  very  pleasant  sport.  We  have  a  nose  full 
of  it!  Yet  we  cannot  sign  this  peace.  If  a  man  has  a 
thousand  marks  left  and  a  footpad  says  to  him:  'I  am  going 
to  take  this  away  from  you.  Kindly  sign  this  statement 
to  the  effect  that  you  are  giving  it  to  me  freely.  I  shall 
take  it,  anyway,  but  we  will  both  be  better  off  if  I  have 
your  consent,'  what  would  you  expect  the  man  to  do? 
Let  the  Allies  come  to  Berlin !  We  cannot  go  to  war  again, 
but — the  people  must  stand  behind  the  government!" 

Just  what  he  meant  by  the  last  assertion  was  not  entirely 
clear;  but  at  least  the  first  half  of  the  assertion  was  fre- 
quently borne  out  by  little  hints  that  all  but  escaped  the 
eye.  Thus,  a  large  bookstore  in  Berlin  bore  the  meaningful 
placard,  "War  Literature  at  Half  Price!" 

"From  this  date"  (May  8th),  gasped  an  important  Berlin 
daily,  "we  drop  to  a  fourth-rate  power,  along  with  Spain." 
(There  were,  to  be  sure,  some  Spanish  suggestions  in  the 
uncleanliness,  the  apathy,  the  run-down  condition  of  build- 
ings that  had  suffered  five  years  of  disrepair,  in  the  emaciated 
beggars  one  occasionally  saw  in  the  Germany  of  1919.) 
"With  this  'peace'  we  are  down  and  out;  we  can  never  get 
on  our  feet  again.  There  is  not  wealth  enough  in  all  Ger- 
many to  pay  this  indemnity  and  still  save  ourselves.  We 
can  never  recover  because  we  can  never  buy  the  raw  materials 
we  must  have  to  do  so.  There  is  nothing  left  in  the  country 
with  which  to  pay  for  these  raw  stuffs  except  our  labor, 
and  we  cannot  set  to  work  because  we  have  no  raw  stuffs 
to  work  with.  We  are  caught  in  the  whirlpool!  It  is  a 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

fallacy  to  think  that  we  shall  save  money  on  our  army. 
The  army  we  have  to-day  costs  us  far  more  than  the  one 
we  had  when  the  armistice  was  signed.  If  we  are  required 
to  have  an  army  of  volunteers  only  and  pay  them  as  good 
wages  as  they  now  require  .  .  .  to-day  one  soldier  costs 
us  more  than  thirty  did  under  the  old  system!  And  what 
soldiers!  We  shall  not  be  able  to  compete  with  the  world, 
first  of  all  because  the  exchange  on  the  mark  will  make  our 
raw  materials  cost  us  three  times  what  they  do  our  rivals, 
and  then  we  have  these  new  eight-hour  laws  and  all  the 
rest  of  the  advance  socialistic  program,  which  they  do  not 
have  in  other  countries.  The  Allies  should  have  hunted 
out  the  guilty  individuals,  not  punish  us  all  as  a  nation, 
as  an  incompetent  captain  punishes  his  entire  company 
because  he  is  too  lazy  or  too  stupid  to  catch  the  actual 
wrong-doers.  In  twenty  years  Germany  will  have  been 
completely  destroyed.  All  the  best  men  will  have  emi- 
grated. If  we  try  to  spend  anything  for  Kultur — that 
excellent  heritage  of  the  old  regime  which  our  enemies  so 
falsified  and  garbled — for  working-men's  insurance,  new 
schools,  municipal  theaters,  even  for  public  baths,  the 
Allies  will  say,  'No,  we  want  that  money  ourselves;  you 
owe  us  that  on  the  old  war  game  you  lost.'  In  that  case 
all  we  can  do  is  to  resort  to  passive  resistance" — a  strange 
German  occupation  indeed ! 

The  little  blond  German  "ace  of  aces,"  credited  with 
bringing  down  some  twoscore  Allied  airmen,  hoped  to  come 
to  America  and  play  in  a  circus.  He  put  little  faith  in  the 
rumor  that  he  might  not  be  received  there,  and  thought  that 
if  there  really  was  any  opposition  it  could  easily  be  over- 
come by  getting  one  of  our  large  "trusts"  to  take  a  financial 
interest  in  his  case.  In  fact,  the  chief  worry  of  many  Ger- 
mans seemed  to  be  whether  or  not  and  how  soon  they  would 
be  allowed  to  come  to  America — North  or  South.  "Rats 
desert  a  sinking  ship."  One  man  whose  intelligence  and 

194 


THUS  SPEAKS  GERMANY 

experience  warranted  attention  to  his  words  assured  me 
that  he  belonged  to  a  party  that  had  been  working  for 
some  time  in  favor  of,  and  that  they  found  a  strong  senti- 
ment for — making  Germany  an  American  colony!  I  regret 
the  inability  to  report  any  personal  evidence  to  support  his 
statements. 

But  if  the  general  tone  was  lacrymose,  notes  of  a  more 
threatening  timbre  were  by  no  means  lacking.  "With  this 
'peace,'"  was  one  assertion,  "we  shall  have  another  Thirty 
Years'  War  and  all  Europe  will  go  over  the  brink  into  the 
abyss."  "We  Germans  got  too  high,"  mused  a  philosophic 
old  innkeeper  accustomed  to  take  advantage  of  his  pro- 
fession as  a  listening-post.  "He  who  does  is  due  for  a  fall, 
and  we  got  it.  But  France  is  the  haughty  one  now,  and  she 
is  riding  to  a  cropper.  She  will  rue  her  overbearing  manner, 
for  the  revanche  is  here  already — on  our  side  this  time. 
And  if  French  and  Germans  ever  go  to  war  again  there  will 
be  no  prisoner  staken ! "  "If  the  Germans  are  forced  to  sign 
this  'peace,'"  cried  a  fat  Hollander  who  had  lived  much 
in  Germany,  "there  will  be  another  war  within  ten  years, 
and  all  Europe  will  be  destroyed,  Holland  with  the  rest, 
France  certainly,  for  she  is  tottering  already.  If  they  do 
not  sign,  we  shall  all  be  plunged  into  anarchy."  "We  had 
looked  to  Wilson  to  bring  an  end  to  a  century-old  situation 
that  had  grown  intolerable,"  moaned  a  Berlin  merchant. 
"Now  we  must  drill  hatred  into  our  children  from  their 
earliest  age,  so  that  in  thirty  years,  when  the  time  is  ripe  ..." 

What  does  Germany  plan  to  do  with  herself,  or  what  is 
left  of  her,  now?  Does  she  wish  to  remain  a  republic,  to 
return  to  the  Hohenzollerns,  or  to  establish  a  new  monarchy 
under  some  other  less  sinister  dynasty?  As  with  so  many 
of  the  world's  problems,  the  answer  depends  largely  on  the 
papers  one,  or  those  of  whom  one  made  inquiries,  read. 
The  replies  ran  the  entire  gamut.  Some  asserted  that  even 
the  heads  of  the  socialistic  parties  have  lost  only  the  sym- 

14  IPS 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

bols  of  kaiserism,  that  the  masses  still  keep  even  those.  A 
majority  of  the  peasant  class  is  probably  monarchical, 
when  they  are  not  wholly  indifferent  to  anything  beyond 
their  own  acres  and  the  price  of  beer.  They  seem  to  like  the 
distant  glamour  of  a  glittering  pageantry,  a  ruler  to  whom 
they  can  attibute  superman  or  demigod  qualities — so  long 
as  the  cost  thereof  is  not  extracted  too  openly  from  their 
pockets.  The  Junkers,  the  old  robber  barons  from  Borussia, 
of  course  still  want  a  monarchy,  probably  of  Hohenzollern 
complexion,  though  the  present  heir  to  that  bankrupt 
estate  has  not  a  visible  friend  in  the  Empire.  "The  major- 
ity still  want  the  Kaiser,  or  at  least  a  monarchy,"  one  heard 
the  frequent  assertion;  "we  are  not  ripe  for  a  republic." 

If  I  were  forced  to  answer  definitely  myself  I  should  say 
that  most  educated  Germans  want  nothing  more  to  do 
with  the  Kaiser  and  his  family.  Their  reply  to  a  query  on 
this  point  is  most  apt  to  be  an  energetic,  "  Ausgeschlossen! " 
On  the  question  of  no  monarchy  at  all  they  are  by  no  means 
so  decided.  Naturally  there  is  still  a  monarchical  class  left ; 
there  still  is  even  in  France.  "A  vote  would  probably 
give  a  small  majority  for  the  monarchy  to-day,"  said  a 
young  psychologist.  "I  have  no  politics  myself;  a  psy- 
chologist must  keep  his  mind  clear  of  those  squabbles,  as 
an  engineer  must  his  gears  of  sand,  but  at  least  the  Hohen- 
zollerns  gave  us  peace  and  quiet,  and  while  there  were  some 
unpleasant  things  about  their  system,  they  now  seem  slight 
in  comparison  with  what  the  war  has  brought  us.  ... 
The  German  people  are  really  democratic  (sic!),  but  they 
are  also  monarchical;  they  want  a  paternal  government, 
such  as  they  have  been  used  to  during  all  the  living  genera- 
tions. But  we  shall  probably  remain  a  republic  now." 

Said  the  peasant  innkeeper  already  introduced:  "The 
monarchy  is  probably  the  best  system  for  us;  it  fits  our 
mentality  and  training.  But  now  that  we  have  changed 
there  is  no  use  in  changing  back  again.  There  is  not  enough 

196 


THUS  SPEAKS  GERMANY 

difference  between  the  two  schemes  of  government.  So  we 
shall  probably  stay  what  we  are.  The  great  trouble  with 
this  king  and  prince  business" — he  lived  in  Saxe- Weimar, 
where  every  seventh  man  used  to  wear  a  crown — "was 
that  it  was  so  ubertrieben,  so  overdone,  with  us.  They 
demanded  such  swarms  of  Beamters,  of  employees,  courtiers, 
uniforms.  And  all  their  petty  little  nobles!  We  peasants 
don't  mind  supporting  a  few  such  decorations,  but  .  .  . 
Now  the  Kaiser  gets  eighty  thousand  marks  a  year  instead 
of  twenty -four  million,  and  I  doubt  if  he  is  suffering  from 
hunger — which  is  less  than  can  be  said  for  many  of  the 
people  he  left  behind." 

Possibly  the  most  frequently  expressed  opinion  in  the 
length  and  breadth  of  Germany  was  the  frank,  "It  does 
not  much  matter  what  kind  of  a  government  we  have  so 
long  as  we  can  get  wise  and  honest  men  at  the  top."  That, 
after  all,  is  the  final  answer  to  the  whole  problem  that  has 
been  teasing  the  world  for  centuries.  "Remember,"  smiled 
a  Dutchman,  "that  this  democracy  you  are  shouting  about 
is  no  new  American  discovery.  We  tried  a  republic  cen- 
turies ago,  and  we  still  have  it,  though  now  under  a  hered- 
itary president  called  a  king — or  just  now  a  queen — and 
we  find  that  works  best  of  all."  "We  are  like  birds  just  let 
out  of  a  lifetime  cage,"  protested  a  Socialist.  "Give  us  time 
to  try  our  wings.  We  shall  fly  much  better  two  years  from 
now.  There  was  a  strong  republican  feeling  in  Germany 
long  before  the  war,  but  the  Kaiser  and  his  crowd  ruthlessly 
strangled  it."  "How  fair,  how  revolutionary,  how  social- 
istic is  the  'new'  Germany,"  raged  the  Independent  Social- 
ists, "is  shown  by  the  acquittal  of  the  assassins  of  Liebknecht 
and  Luxembourg  contrasted  with  the  death  -  sentence  of 
Levine,  who  was  no  more  a  'traitor  against  the  consti- 
tuted authorities '  than  was  Hoffmann,  who  drove  him  out, 
or  those  who  upset  the  monarchy  and  established  the 
'republic.'" 

197 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

But  we  must  be  careful  not  to  let  partizan  rage,  sour 
grapes,  obscure  the  problem.  There  has  certainly  been  a 
considerable  change  of  feeling  in  Germany;  whether  a 
sufficient,  a  final  change  remains  to  be  seen.  The  Germans, 
whatever  their  faults,  are  a  foresighted  and  a  deliberate 
people.  They  are  scanning  the  horizon  with  unprejudiced 
eyes  in  quest  of  a  well-tested  theory  of  government  that 
will  fit  their  problem.  Though  they  seem  for  the  instant 
to  be  inclined  to  the  left,  they  are  really  balancing  on  the 
ridge  between  republicanism  and  monarchy,  perhaps  a 
more  responsible  monarchy  than  the  one  they  have  just 
cast  off,  and  it  will  probably  not  take  much  to  tip  them 
definitely  to  either  side.  In  the  offing,  too,  Bolshevism 
is  always  hovering;  not  so  close,  perhaps,  as  the  Germans 
themselves  fear,  or  are  willing  to  have  the  world  believe, 
but  distinctly  menacing,  for  all  that.  In  things  political 
at  least  the  German  is  no  idealist.  Of  the  rival  systems  of 
government  he  has  an  eye  chiefly  to  the  material  advantages. 
Which  one  will  bring  him  the  most  Kultur,  in  the  shape 
of  all  those  things  ranging  from  subsidized  opera  to  municipal 
baths  with  which  the  Kaiser  regime  upholstered  his  slavery  ? 
Above  all,  which  will  give  him  the  earliest  and  surest  oppor- 
tunity to  get  back  to  work  and  to  capitalize  undisturbed 
his  world-famed  diligence?  Those  are  his  chief  questions. 
I  never  heard  in  all  Germany  the  hint  of  a  realization  that 
a  republic  may  be  the  best  form  of  government  because 
it  gives  every  citizen  more  or  less  of  a  chance  to  climb  to 
the  topmost  rung  of  the  ladder.  But  I  did  now  and  then 
see  encouraging  signs  that  the  masses  are  beginning  to 
realize  that  a  people  is  responsible  for  the  actions  of  its 
government  just  as  a  business  man  is  responsible  for  his 
clerk's  errors — and  that  is  already  a  long  step  forward  for 
Germany. 


SENTENCED   TO   AMPUTATION 

THE  terms  of  the  Peace  Treaty  having  broken  upon 
Berlin  without  arousing  any  of  the  excited  scenes  I 
had  expected,  I  decided  to  go  away  from  there.  General 
apathy  might  be  ruling  in  the  provinces  also,  but  at  least 
I  would  be  "on  my  own"  if  anything  happened,  and  not 
where  I  could  dart  under  the  protecting  wing  of  the  Ally- 
housing  Adlon  at  the  first  signs  of  storm.  I  laid  a  plan 
that  promised  to  kill  two  birds  with  one  stone.  I  would 
jump  to  the  far  eastern  border  of  the  Empire,  to  a  section 
which  Paris  had  just  decreed  should  be  handed  over  to  the 
Poles,  and  I  would  walk  from  there  into  a  section  which 
the  Poles  had  already  taken.  In  other  words,  I  would 
examine  side  by  side  an  amputated  member  and  one  which 
the  consultation  of  international  doctors  about  the  operating- 
table  on  which  Germany  lay  had  marked  for  amputation. 
Luckily  I  took  the  wrong  train  on  the  teeming  Friedrichs- 
strasse  Bahnhof  platform  next  morning,  or  I  should  have 
been  sent  back  before  reaching  my  goal.  I  learned  just 
in  time  to  drop  off  there  that  travelers  into  Polish  territory 
must  have  their  passports  viseed  in  Frankfurt-am-Oder. 
There  was  a  considerable  gathering  of  nervous  petitioners 
about  the  door  of  the  haughty  German  officer  who  repre- 
sented the  Empire  in  this  matter,  at  one  of  the  huge  bar- 
racks on  the  outskirts  of  town.  But  the  delay  was  not 
correspondingly  long,  thanks  not  only  to  the  efficient  system 

199 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

of  his  office,  but  to  the  fact  that  many  of  the  applicants 
remained  only  long  enough  to  hear  him  dismiss  them  with 
an  uncompromising  "No!"  All  men  of  military  age — and 
in  the  Germany  of  1919  that  seemed  to  mean  every  male 
between  puberty  and  senility — were  being  refused  per- 
mission to  enter  the  amputated  province,  whether  they 
were  of  Polish  or  German  origin.  My  own  case  was  dif- 
ferent. The  officer  scowled  a  bit  as  the  passport  I  laid 
before  him  revealed  my  nationality,  but  he  stamped  it 
quickly,  as  if  in  haste  to  be  done  with  an  unpleasant  duty. 
Whether  or  not  this  official  right  of  exit  from  the  Empire 
included  permission  to  return  was  a  question  which  he 
curtly  dismissed  as  no  affair  of  his.  Evidently  I  was  burn- 
ing my  bridges  behind  me. 

Frankfurt-am-Oder  pulsated  with  soldiers,  confirming 
the  impression  that  reigned  in  khaki-clad  circles  at  Coblenz 
that  the  German  army  had  turned  its  face  toward  the  east. 
Food  seemed  somewhat  less  scarce  than  in  the  capital.  A 
moderately  edible  dinner  cost  me  only  eight  marks.  In 
the  market-place,  however,  the  stalls  and  bins  were  patheti- 
cally near  to  emptiness.  A  new  annoyance — one  that  was 
destined  to  pursue  me  during  all  the  rest  of  my  travels  in 
Germany — here  first  became  personal.  It  was  the  scarcity 
of  matches.  In  the  days  to  come  that  mere  hour's  search 
for  a  single  box  of  uncertain,  smoke-barraging  Streichholzer 
grew  to  be  a  pleasant  memory.  Not  far  from  the  city 
was  one  of  those  many  camps  of  Russian  prisoners,  rationed 
now  by  American  doughboys,  some  of  whose  inmates  had 
nearly  five  years  of  German  residence  to  their  discredit.  If 
the  testimony  of  many  constant  observers  was  trustworthy, 
they  dreaded  nothing  so  much  as  the  day  when  they  must 
turn  their  backs  on  American  plenitude  and  regain  their 
own  famished,  disrupted  land.  True,  they  were  still 
farmed  out  to  labor  for  their  enemies.  But  they  seldom 
strained  themselves  with  toil,  and  in  exchange  were  they 

200 


SENTENCED  TO  AMPUTATION 

not  growing  efficient  in  baseball  and  enhancing  their  Tataric 
beauty  with  the  silk  hats  and  red  neckties  furnished  by  an 
all-providing  Red  Cross? 

The  station  platform  of  Frankfurt,  strewn  pellmell  with 
Polish  refugees  and  their  disheveled  possessions,  recalled 
the  halcyon  days  of  Ellis  Island.  A  "mixed"  train  of 
leisurely  temperament  wandered  away  at  last  toward  the 
trunk  line  to  the  east  which  I  had  fortunately  not  taken 
that  morning.  Evidently  one  must  get  off  the  principal 
arteries  of  travel  to  hear  one's  fellow-passengers  express 
themselves  frankly  and  freely.  At  any  rate,  there  was 
far  more  open  discussion  of  the  question  of  the  hour  during 
that  jolting  thirty  miles  than  I  had  ever  heard  in  a  day  on 
sophisticated  express  trains. 

"The  idea,"  began  an  old  man  of  sixty  or  more,  apropos 
of  nothing  but  the  thought  that  had  evidently  been  running 
through  his  head  at  sight  of  the  fertile  acres  about  us,  "of 
expecting  us  to  surrender  this,  one  of  the  richest  sections 
of  the  Fatherland,  and  to  those  improvident  Poles  of  all 
people!  They  are  an  intelligent  race — I  have  never  been 
one  of  those  who  denied  them  intelligence.  But  they  can 
never  govern  themselves;  history  has  proved  that  over 
and  over  again.  In  my  twenty-three  years'  residence  in 
Upper  Silesia  I  have  seen  how  the  laborers'  houses  have 
improved,  how  they  have  thrived  and  reached  a  far  higher 
plane  of  culture  under  German  rule.  A  Polish  government 
would  only  bring  them  down  to  their  natural  depths  again. 
They  will  never  treat  the  working-man  as  fairly,  as  gener- 
ously as  we  have. 

"But,"  he  continued,  suddenly,  with  increased  heat, 
"we  will  not  see  the  Fatherland  torn  to  pieces  by  a  band  of 
wolfish,  envious  enemies.  We  will  fight  for  our  rights! 
We  cannot  abandon  our  faithful  fellow-countrymen,  our 
genuine  German  brethren,  to  be  driven  from  their  homes 
or  misruled  by  these  wretched  Poles.  It  would  be  unworthy 

2OI 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

of  our  German  blood!  There  will  be  a  Burgerkrieg — a 
peasants'  war,  with  every  man  fighting  for  his  own  sacred 
possessions,  before  we  will  allow  German  territory  to  be 
taken  from  us.  I  will  sacrifice  my  entire  family  rather 
than  allow  the  Fatherland  to  be  dismembered." 

Our  fellow-passengers  listened  to  this  tirade  of  testy  old 
age  with  the  curious  apathy  of  hunger  or  indifference  which 
seemed  to  have  settled  upon  the  nation.  Now  and  then  one 
or  two  of  them  nodded  approval  of  the  sentiments  expressed ; 
occasionally  they  threw  in  a  few  words  of  like  tenor.  But 
on  the  whole  there  was  little  evidence  of  an  enthusiasm 
for  rescuing  their  "genuine  German  brethren"  that  prom- 
ised to  go  the  length  of  serious  personal  sacrifice. 

All  Germany  was  in  bloom,  chiefly  with  the  white  of  early 
fruit-trees,  giving  the  landscape  a  maidenly  gaiety  that 
contrasted  strangely  with  the  funereal  gloom  within  the  car. 
Gangs  of  women  were  toiling  with  shovels  along  the  rail- 
way embankment.  The  sandy  flatlands,  supporting  little 
but  scrubby  spruce  forests,  gave  way  at  length  to  a  rich 
black  soil  that  heralded  the  broad  fertile  granary  which 
Germany  had  been  called  upon  to  surrender.  Barefoot 
women  and  children,  interspersed  with  only  a  small  per- 
centage of  men,  stood  erect  from  their  labors  and  gazed 
oxlike  after  the  rumbling  train.  Here  and  there  great 
fields  of  colza,  yellow  as  the  saffron  robe  of  a  Buddhist  priest, 
stretched  away  toward  the  horizon.  The  plant  furnished, 
according  to  one  of  my  fellow-passengers,  a  very  tolerable 
Ersatz  oil.  Fruit-trees  in  their  white  spring  garments,  their 
trunks  carefully  whitewashed  as  a  protection  against 
insects,  lined  every  highway.  Other  trees  had  been 
trimmed  down  to  mere  trunks,  like  those  of  Brittany  and 
La  Vend6e  in  France,  as  if  they,  too,  had  been  called  upon 
to  sacrifice  all  but  life  itself  to  the  struggle  that  had 
ended  so  disastrously. 

In  the  helter-skelter  of  finding  seats  in  the  express  that 

202 


SENTENCED  TO  AMPUTATION 

picked  us  up  at  the  junction  I  had  lost  sight  of  the  belligerent 
old  man.  A  husband  and  wife  who  had  formed  part  of  his 
audience,  however,  found  place  in  the  same  compartment  as 
I.  For  a  long  time  I  attempted  to  draw  them  into  con- 
versation by  acting  as  suspiciously  as  possible.  I  took 
copious  notes,  snapped  my  kodak  at  everything  of  interest 
on  the  station  platforms,  and  finally  took  to  reading  an 
English  newspaper.  All  in  vain.  They  stared  at  me  with 
that  frankness  of  the  continental  European,  but  they  would 
not  be  moved  to  words,  not  even  at  sight  of  the  genuine 
cigar  I  ostentatiously  extracted  from  my  knapsack.  At 
length  I  gave  up  the  attempt  and  turned  to  them  with  some 
casual  remark,  bringing  in  a  reference  to  my  nationality 
at  the  first  opportunity. 

"Ah,"  boasted  the  woman,  "I  told  my  husband  that  you 
looked  like  an  Englishman,  or  something.  But  he  insisted 
you  were  a  Dane." 

"I  wonder  if  the  old  fellow  got  a  seat,  and  some  one 
else  to  listen  to  him — with  his  Burgerkrieg"  mused  the 
husband,  a  moment  later.  "We  Germans  have  little  to 
boast  of,  in  governing  ourselves.  Germany  should  be 
divided  up  between  Belgium,  France,  and  England,  or  be 
given  an  English  king."  Apparently  he  was  quite  serious, 
though  he  may  have  been  indulging  in  that  crude  sarcasm 
to  which  the  German  sometimes  abandons  himself  and 
which  he  thinks  nicely  veiled.  "We  are  not  ripe  for  a 
republic.  What  we  are  evidently  trying  to  do  is  to  make 
ourselves  a  super-republic  in  one  jump.  The  Socialists 
were  against  the  Kaiser  because  he  put  on  too  much  pomp, 
but  we  Germans  need  that  kind  of  a  ruler,  some  one  who 
will  be  stern  but  kind  to  us,  like  a  father.  The  Kaiser 
himself  was  not  to  blame.  At  least  half,  if  not  a  majority, 
of  the  people  want  him  back — or  at  least  another  one  like 
him." 

"We  surely  will  have  our  Kaiser  back  again,  sooner  or 

203 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

later,"  cried  the  woman,  in  a  tone  like  that  of  a  religious 
fanatic. 

Just  then,  however,  the  pair  reached  their  station  and 
there  was  no  opportunity  to  get  her  to  elaborate  her  text. 
They  shooks  hands  heartily,  wished  me  a  "Gluckliche 
Reise"  and  disappeared  into  the  night. 

Sunset  and  dusk  had  been  followed  by  an  almost  full 
moon  that  made  the  evening  only  a  fainter  replica  of  the 
perfect  cloudless  day.  Toward  nine,  however,  the  sky 
became  overcast  and  the  darkness  impenetrable.  This  was 
soon  the  case  inside  as  well  as  out,  for  during  an  unusually 
protracted  stop  at  a  small  station  a  guard  marched  the 
length  of  the  train,  putting  out  all  its  lights.  It  seemed 
we  were  approaching  the  "danger  zone."  I  had  been 
laboring  under  the  delusion  that  the  armistice  which  Ger- 
many had  concluded  with  her  enemies  was  in  force  on  all 
fronts.  Not  at  all.  The  Poles,  it  seemed,  were  intrenched 
from  six  hundred  to  three  thousand  yards  away  all  along 
this  section  of  the  line.  They  had  been  there  since  January, 
soon  after  the  province  of  Posen  had  revolted  against 
German  rule.  Almost  every  night  they  fired  upon  the  trains, 
now  and  then  even  with  artillery.  Sometimes  the  line  was 
impassable.  German  troops,  of  course,  were  facing  them. 
Trench  raids  were  of  almost  nightly  occurrence;  some  of 
them  had  developed  into  real  battles. 

Now  and  again  as  we  hurled  on  through  the  night  there 
were  sounds  of  distant  firing.  It  was  only  at  Nakel,  how- 
ever, that  we  seemed  in  any  personal  danger.  There  the 
Poles  were  barely  six  hundred  yards  away,  and  between  the 
time  we  halted  at  the  station  and  got  under  way  again  at 
least  a  hundred  shots  were  fired,  most  of  them  the  rat-a-tat 
of  machine-guns  and  all  of  them  so  close  at  hand  that  we 
unconsciously  ducked  our  heads.  The  train  apparently 
escaped  unscathed,  however,  and  two  stations  farther  on 
the  guard  lighted  it  up  again,  with  the  announcement  that 

204 


SENTENCED  TO  AMPUTATION 

danger  was  over.  We  rumbled  on  into  Bromberg,  where  I 
descended  toward  midnight.  Soldiers  held  the  station 
gate  and  subjected  every  traveler — or,  more  exactly,  his 
papers — to  a  careful  scrutiny  before  permitting  him  to  pass. 
My  own  credentials  they  accepted  more  readily  than  those 
of  many  of  their  fellow-countrymen,  some  of  whom  were 
herded  into  a  place  of  detention.  As  I  stepped  out  through 
the  gate,  another  soldier  thrust  into  my  hand  an  Ausweis 
permitting  me  to  remain  on  the  streets  after  dark,  for 
Bromberg  was  officially  in  a  state  of  siege. 

When  I  entered  the  nearest  hotel  I  found  that  unofficially 
in  the  same  condition.  A  drunken  army  officer,  who  was 
the  exact  picture  of  what  Allied  cartoonists  would  have  us 
believe  all  his  class,  was  prancing  about  the  hotel  office  with 
drawn  sword,  roaring  angrily  and  threatening  to  spit  on 
his  needle-pointed  saber  every  one  in  the  room.  The  pos- 
sible victims  were  two  half-grown  hotel  clerks,  ridiculous 
in  their  professional  evening  dress,  and  a  thin,  mottled-faced 
private  soldier,  who  cowered  speechless  in  different  corners. 
I  was  inside  before  I  noticed  the  disturbance,  and  pride 
would  not  permit  me  to  retreat.  I  took  station  near  a 
convenient  stool  and  studied  the  exact  degree  of  uncertainty 
of  the  bully's  legs,  with  a  view  to  future  defense.  But  for 
some  reason  he  took  no  notice  of  me  and  at  length  lurched 
out  again  into  the  street,  cursing  as  he  went. 

I  owe  it  to  the  goddess  of  truth  to  state  that  this  was  the 
one  and  only  case  I  ever  personally  saw  of  a  German  officer 
living  up  to  the  popular  Allied  conception  of  his  caste. 
On  the  contrary,  I  found  the  great  majority  of  them  quiet, 
courteous  and  gentlemanly  to  a  high  degree,  with  by  no 
means  so  large  a  sprinkling  of  the  "roughneck"  variety  as 
was  to  be  found  among  our  own  officers  in  Europe.  Which 
does  not  mean  that  they  were  not  often  haughty  beyond 
reason,  nor  that  they  may  not  sometimes  have  concealed 
brutal  instincts  beneath  their  polished  exteriors.  But 

205 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

while  we  are  on  the  subject,  let  me  read  into  the  record  the 
testimony  of  their  own  fellow-countrymen,  particularly 
that  of  many  a  man  who  served  under  them. 

"Our  active  officers,"  would  be  the  composite  answer 
of  all  those  I  questioned  on  the  subject,  "were  excellent. 
They  still  had  something  adel  about  them — something  of 
the  genuine  nobility  of  the  old  knights  from  which  the 
caste  sprang.  Their  first  and  foremost  thought  was  the 
fatherly  care  of  their  men — rendered  with  a  more  or  less 
haughty  aloofness,  to  be  sure — that  was  necessary  to  dis- 
cipline— but  a  genuine  solicitude  for  the  welfare  of  their 
soldiers.  Above  all" — and  here,  perhaps,  is  the  chief  point 
of  divergence  between  them  and  our  own  officers  of  the  same 
class — "they  were  rarely  or  never  self-seeking.  Our  reserve 
officers,  on  the  other  hand,  were  by  no  means  of  the  same 
high  character.  One  so  often  felt  the  Kaufmann — the  soul 
of  a  merchant  underneath.  Many  of  them  were  just 
plain  rascals,  who  stole  the  presents  that  came  addressed 
to  their  soldiers  and  looted  for  their  own  personal  benefit. 
Then  there  were  many  who,  though  honest  and  well- 
meaning  enough,  had  not  the  preparation  required  for  so 
important  an  office.  They  were  teachers,  or  scholars,  or 
young  students,  who  did  not  realize  that  a  quiet  voice  is 
more  commanding  than  a  noisy  one.  The  great  drawback 
of  our  military  system,  of  our  national  life,  in  fact,  under 
the  monarchy,  was  the  impenetrable  wall  that  separated 
us  into  the  compartments  of  caste.  Old  Feldwebels  who  had 
served  in  the  army  for  twenty  years  were  refused  positions 
which  they  could  have  filled  to  excellent  advantage,  in 
war-time,  because  they  were  not  considered  in  the  "officer 
class";  and  there  were  set  over  them  men  half  their  own 
age,  school-boy  officers,  in  some  cases,  who  were  barely 
eighteen,  and  who  naturally  could  not  have  the  training 
and  experience  which  are  required  of  a  lieutenant.  Sixty 
per  cent,  of  our  active  officers  were  slain,  and  many  others 

206 


SENTENCED  TO  AMPUTATION 

were  not  able  to  return  to  the  line.  Only  30  per  cent,  of 
our  reserve  officers  were  killed,  with  the  result  that  before 
the  war  ended  a  man  was  lucky  to  have  a  superior  whom  he 
could  honor  and  unquestioningly  obey." 

It  was  in  Bromberg  that  I  came  into  personal  contact 
with  more  of  the  class  in  question  than  I  had  in  any  other 
city  of  the  Empire.  Not  only  were  soldiers  more  numerous 
here,  but  I  purposely  "butted  in"  upon  a  half-dozen  military 
offices,  ostensibly  to  make  sure  that  my  papers  were  in 
order,  really  to  feel  out  the  sentiment  on  the  peace  terms 
and  measure  the  sternness  of  martial  law.  But  though  I 
deliberately  emphasized  my  nationality,  not  once  did  an 
officer  show  any  resentment  at  my  presence.  In  fact, 
most  of  them  saw  me  to  the  door  at  the  end  of  the  interview, 
and  bowed  me  out  with  all  the  ceremony  of  their  exacting 
social  code.  If  the  verdict  that  had  just  been  issued  in 
Paris  had  burst  like  a  shell  among  them,  they  showed  no 
evidence  of  panic.  The  official  day's  work  went  deliber- 
ately on,  and  the  only  comment  on  the  peace  terms  I  suc- 
ceeded in  arousing  was  a  quiet,  uncompromising  "Quite 
unacceptable,  of  course." 

The  city  itself,  was  as  astonishingly  placid  in  the  midst 
of  what  an  outsider  would  have  supposed  to  be  exciting 
times.  Being  not  only  in  a  state  of  siege,  but  having  just 
heard  that  it  was  soon  to  transfer  its  allegiance  to  another 
race,  one  was  justified  in  expecting  a  town  as  large  as 
Trenton  or  San  Antonio  to  show  at  least  some  ripples  on 
its  surface.  I  looked  for  them  in  vain.  It  was  Sunday, 
just  the  day  for  popular  demonstrations  in  Germany,  yet 
not  only  was  there  no  sign  whatever  of  rejoicing  among 
the  Polish  population,  but  nothing  even  suggesting  the 
uprising  of  protest  among  the  German  residents  which  had 
been  so  loudly  prophesied.  The  place  resembled  some 
New  England  factory  town  on  the  same  day  of  the  week. 
Groups  of  Polish-looking  young  men,  somewhat  uncom- 

207 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

fortable  and  stiff  in  their  Sunday  best,  lounged  on  the  street- 
corners,  ogling  the  plump  Polish  girls  on  their  way  to 
church.  Strollers  seemed  interested  only  in  keeping  to  the 
shaded  side  of  the  street,  youths  and  children  only  in  their 
games.  Tramways  rumbled  slowly  along  as  usual — and, 
before  I  forget  it,  their  female  conductors  wore  breeches; 
such  shops  as  were  habitually  open  on  Sunday  seemed  to 
be  doing  their  customary  amount  of  business.  The  whole 
town  was  as  staid,  heavy,  and  unenthusiastic  as  the  German 
character. 

In  the  face  of  a  wide  divergence  of  opinion  among  its 
own  inhabitants  it  was  hard  for  a  stranger  to  decide  which 
of  the  two  races  predominated  in  Bromberg.  The  Germans 
asserted  that  only  40  per  cent,  of  the  population  were 
Poles,  and  that  many  of  them  preferred  to  see  things  remain 
as  they  were.  The  Poles  defied  any  one  to  find  more  than 
twenty  Germans  among  every  hundred  inhabitants,  or  to 
point  out  a  single  member  of  their  race  who  sincerely  wished 
to  keep  his  allegiance  to  the  Fatherland.  Street  and  shop 
signs  were  nearly  all  in  German,  but  that  may  have  been 
due  to  legal  requirement.  The  rank  and  file  of  the  populace 
had  a  Polish  look,  yet  they  seemed  to  speak  German  by 
choice.  Moreover,  there  is  but  scant  difference  of  appearance 
between  Teutons  and  Poles,  particularly  when  they  have 
lived  their  entire  lives  together  in  the  same  environment. 
On  the  wall  of  a  church  I  dropped  into  during  morning 
service  there  were  five  columns  of  names,  forty-five  each, 
of  the  men  who  had  "Patriotically  sacrificed  their  lives 
for  a  grateful  Fatherland."  At  least  one  half  of  them  ended 
in  "ski,"  and  in  one  column  alone  I  counted  thirty  unques- 
tionably Polish  names.  But  then,  it  was  a  Catholic  church, 
so  there  you  are  again.  Perhaps  the  most  unbiased  testi- 
mony of  all  was  the  fact  that  the  little  children  playing  in 
the  park  virtually  all  spoke  Polish. 

I  drifted  into  conversation  with  an  intelligent  young 

208 


SENTENCED  TO  AMPUTATION 

mechanic  taking  his  Sunday  ease  in  a  Bierhalle.  He  turned 
out  to  be  a  Pole.  As  soon  as  he  was  convinced  of  my 
identity  he  shed  his  mask  of  commonplace  remarks  and 
fell  to  talking  frankly  and  sincerely.  I  do  not  speak 
Polish,  hence  the  rulers  of  Bromberg  might  have  been 
startled  to  hear  the  statements  that  were  poured  into  my 
ear  in  their  own  tongue.  Yet  my  companion  discussed 
their  shortcomings  and  the  war  they  had  waged,  quite 
openly,  with  far  less  circumspection  than  a  similar  criticism 
of  the  powers  that  be  vrould  have  required  in  France  or  the 
United  States  at  the  same  date. 

"You  don't  hear  much  Polish  on  the  streets,  do  you?" 
he  began.  "But  if  I  could  take  you  into  the  homes  you 
would  find  that  the  street-door  is  the  dividing  line  between 
the  two  tongues.  In  the  family  circle  we  all  stick  to  the  old 
language,  and  the  memory  of  the  ancient  nation  that  is 
just  being  resurrected  has  never  been  obscured.  We  are 
not  exactly  forbidden  to  speak  Polish  in  public,  but  if  we  do 
we  are  quite  likely  to  be  thumped  on  the  head,  or  kicked 
in  the  back,  or  called  "dirty  Polacks."  Besides,  it  is  never 
to  our  advantage  to  admit  that  we  are  Poles.  You  never 
know,  when  you  meet  a  man,  whether  he  is  one  or  not.  I 
feel  sure  the  waiter  there  is  one,  for  instance,  yet  you  see 
he  carefully  pretends  to  understand  nothing  but  German. 
We  are  treated  with  unfair  discrimination  from  the  cradle 
to  the  grave.  When  I  first  went  to  public  school  I  could 
not  speak  German,  and  there  was  hardly  a  day  that  a  gang 
of  little  Deutschen  did  not  beat  me  to  tears.  I  used  to  go 
home  regularly  with  lumps  as  big  as  walnuts  on  my  head. 
Even  the  teacher  whipped  us  for  speaking  Polish.  When 
it  came  time  to  go  to  work  we  could  only  get  the  hardest 
and  most  poorly  paid  jobs.  The  railways,  the  government 
offices,  all  the  better  trades  were  closed  to  us.  If  we  applied 
for  work  at  a  German  factory,  the  first  thing  they  asked 
was  whether  we  were  Catholics  and  Poles.  In  the  courts 

209 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

a  "ski"  on  the  end  of  a  name  means  a  double  sentence. 
Our  taxes  were  figured  far  more  strictly  than  those  of  the 
Germans.  In  the  army  we  are  given  the  dirtiest  jobs  and 
most  of  the  punishments.  At  the  front  we  were  thrown 
into  the  most  dangerous  positions. 

"The  Germans  could  have  won  the  Poles  over  if  they 
had  done  away  with  these  unfair  differences  and  treated 
us  as  equals.  They  are  an  efficient  people  and  some  of 
their  ways  are  better  than  our  ways,  but  they  cannot 
get  rid  of  their  arrogance  and  their  selfishness.  They  are 
short-sighted.  I  spent  four  years  at  the  front,  yet  I  never 
once  fired  at  the  enemy,  but  into  the  air  or  into  the  ground. 
The  majority  of  Poles  did  the  same  thing.  You  can  imagine 
the  ammunition  that  was  wasted.  There  is  not  much 
work  at  home,  yet  you  will  not  find  one  Pole  in  a  hundred 
of  military  age  in  the  German  volunteer  army.  You  see 
many  of  them  in  uniform  on  the  streets  here — all  those  red- 
headed young  fellows  are  Poles — but  that  is  because  they 
are  still  illegally  held  under  the  old  conscription  act.  Short- 
sightedness again,  for  if  trouble  ever  starts,  the  garrison 
will  eat  itself  up  without  any  one  outside  bothering  with  it. 
No  Pole  of  military  age  can  get  into  the  province  of  Posen, 
not  even  if  he  was  born  there.  In  Berlin  there  are  thou- 
sands of  young  Poles  wandering  around  in  uniform,  half 
starved,  with  nothing  to  do,  yet  who  are  not  allowed  to 
come  home. 

"No,  there  has  been  very  little  mixture* of  the  two  races. 
Intermarriage  is  rare.  I  know  only  one  case  of  it  among  my 
own  acquaintances.  It  is  not  the  German  government 
that  is  opposed  to  it — on  the  contrary — but  the  Church, 
and  Polish  sentiment.  The  Catholics  are  against  the  old 
order  of  things  and  want  a  republic;  it  is  the  Protestants 
who  want  the  Kaiser  restored" — here  one  detected  a  re- 
ligious bias  that  perhaps  somewhat  obscured  the  truth. 
"The  old-German  party  wants  to  fight  to  the  end.  If 

210 


SENTENCED  TO  AMPUTATION 

they  had  their  say  Poland  would  never  get  the  territory 
that  has  been  awarded  her.  Sign?  Of  course  they  will 
sign.  They  are  merely  stalling,  in  the  hope  of  having 
the  blow  softened.  Nor  will  the  government  that  accepts 
the  treaty  be  overthrown.  The  Social  Democrats  are 
strong,  very  strong;  they  will  sign  and  still  live.  The 
Poles  ?  With  very  few  exceptions  they  are  eager  to  join  the 
new  empire.  Paderewski  has  become  a  national  hero.  Es- 
pecially are  the  peasants  strong  for  the  change.  For  one 
thing,  it  will  fatten  their  pocketbooks.  The  Germans 
pumped  them  dry  of  everything.  They  had  to  deliver  so 
many  eggs  per  hen,  buying  them  if  the  fowls  did  not  lay 
enough.  Or  the  guilty  hen  had  to  be  turned  over  for 
slaughter.  It  usually  went  into  the  officers'  messes.  Each 
farmer  was  allowed  only  one  rooster.  The  same  exactions 
ruled  among  all  the  flocks  and  herds.  Thousands  of  girls 
were  sent  into  the  pine  forests  to  gather  pitch  for  turpentine. 
No,  I  do  not  believe  they  were  mistreated  against  their 
will,  except  perhaps  in  a  few  individual  cases,  no  more 
than  would  happen  anywhere  under  similar  circumstances. 
Nor  do  I  think  the  Germans  wantonly  destroyed  trees  by 
'ringing'  them.  What  they  did,  probably,  was  tap  them 
too  carelessly  and  too  deep. 

"All  this  talk  about  Bolshevism  overspreading  Germany 
is  nonsense.  The  Bolshevists  are  poor,  simple  fellows 
who  have  nothing  to  lose  and  perhaps  something  to  gain, 
many  of  them  Chinese  laborers  brought  to  Russia  in  the 
time  of  the  Czar,  fatalists  who  think  nothing  of  throwing 
their  lives  away — or  of  taking  those  of  others.  The  other 
day  the  Bolshevists  decreed  in  one  of  the  cities  they  have 
captured  that  the  bourgeois  should  move  out  into  the  out- 
skirts and  the  proletariat  take  all  the  fine  houses.  Then 
they  named  a  'poor  day'  during  which  any  one  who  had  no 
shoes  could  go  into  all  the  houses  and  take  a  pair  wherever 
he  found  two  pairs.  Can  you  imagine  the  orderly,  plodding 
15  an 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

Germans  subscribing  to  any  such  doctrine  as  that?  I  cer- 
tainly cannot,  for  I  have  lived  all  my  life  among  them  and 
I  know  how  they  worship  Ordnung  and  Gemutlichkeit. 

"Yes,  we  have  several  Polish  newspapers  published  here 
in  Bromberg.  But  even  if  you  could  read  them  it  would 
not  be  worth  your  while,  for  they  do  not  mean  what  they 
say.  They  are  doctored  and  padded  and  censored  by 
the  German  authorities  until  the  only  reason  we  read  them 
is  for  the  local  gossip  of  our  friends  and  acquaintances. 
If  it  were  not  Sunday  I  would  take  you  to  meet  the  editor 
of  one  of  them,  and  you  would  find  that  he  speaks  quite 
differently  from  what  he  writes  in  his  paper,  once  he  is 
sure  he  is  not  talking  to  a  German  spy." 

The  mechanic  told  me  all  this  without  once  showing  the 
slightest  evidence  of  prejudice  or  bitterness  against  the 
oppressors  of  his  race.  He  treated  the  matter  with  that 
academic  aloofness,  that  absence  of  personal  feeling,  which 
I  had  so  often  been  astounded  to  see  the  Germans  themselves 
display  toward  the  woes  that  had  come  upon  them.  Per- 
haps a  lifelong  grievance  grows  numb  with  years,  perhaps 
it  is  less  painful  when  swaddled  in  calm  detachment,  per- 
haps, the  temperamental  Polish  character  takes  on  a  phleg- 
matic coating  in  a  German  environment.  At  any  rate,  all 
those  groups  of  youths  that  lounged  on  the  street-corners, 
ogling  the  girls  as  they  passed  on  their  way  homeward 
from  church,  had  a  get-along-with-as-little-trouble-as-pos- 
sible-seeing-we-can't-avoid-it  manner  toward  the  still  some- 
what arrogant  Germans  that  made  Bromberg  outwardly  a 
picture  of  peace  and  contentment. 

The  half-dozen  Teuton  residents  with  whom  I  talked 
seemed  rather  apathetic  toward  the  sudden  change  in  their 
fortunes.  The  shopkeepers,  with  one  exception,  announced 
their  intention  of  continuing  business  in  Bromberg,  even  if  it 
became  necessary  to  adopt  Polish  citizenship.  The  excep- 
tion was  of  the  impression  that  they  would  be  driven  out, 

212 


SENTENCED  TO  AMPUTATION 

and  was  not  yet  making  any  plans  for  the  future.  A  station 
guard,  on  the  other  hand,  denounced  the  decision  of  Paris 
with  a  genuine  Prussian  wrath.  "Every  railway  employee 
is  armed,  he  asserted,  "and  die  Polacken  will  not  get  any- 
thing that  belongs  to  the  Fatherland  without  a  struggle. 
It  is  absurd,"  he  vociferated,  "to  expect  that  we  will  sur- 
render a  genuine  German  city  like  Bromberg  to  a  lot  of 
improvident  wastrels.  Let  them  keep  the  part  about 
Posen  and  south  of  it;  there  the  Poles  are  in  the  majority. 
But  here" — as  usual,  it  seemed,  the  section  to  which  they 
were  entitled  was  somewhere  else. 

A  lawyer  whom  I  found  sunning  himself  on  a  park  bench 
before  the  fantastic  bronze  fountain  discussed  the  problem 
more  quietly,  but  with  no  less  heat. 

"You  Americans,"  he  perorated,  "the  whole  Allied  group, 
do  not  understand  the  problem  in  its  full  significance.  We 
look  upon  the  Poles  very  much  as  you  do  upon  your  negroes. 
They  have  much  the  same  shiftlessness,  much  the  same 
tendency  to  revert  to  the  semi-savagery  out  of  which  we 
Germans  have  lifted  them.  Now  just  imagine,  for  the 
moment,  that  you  had  been  starved  to  submission  in  a 
war  with,  say,  Mexico,  Japan,  and  England.  Suppose  a 
so-called  'peace  conference r  made  up  entirely  of  your 
enemies,  and  sitting,  say,  in  Canada,  decreed  that  Missis- 
sippi, Florida,  Alabama — that  half  a  dozen  of  your  most 
fertile  Southern  states  must  be  turned  over  to  the  negroes, 
to  form  part  of  a  new  negro  nation.  It  is  possible  that 
your  people  in  the  North,  whom  the  problem  did  not  directly 
touch,  might  consent  to  the  arrangement.  But  do  you  for 
a  moment  think  that  your  hot-blooded  Southerners,  the 
white  men  who  would  have  to  live  in  that  negro  nation  or 
escape  with  what  they  could  carry  with  them,  would  accept 
the  decision  without  springing  to  arms  even  though  it  was 
signed  by  a  dozen  Northerners?  That  is  exactly  our  case 
here,  and  whether  or  not  this  alleged  Peace  Treaty  is  accepted 

213 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

by  the  government  in  Berlin,  the  Germans  of  the  East 
will  not  see  themselves  despoiled  without  a  struggle." 

That  evening  I  attended  an  excellent  performance  of 
Sudermann's  Die  Ehre  in  the  subsidized  municipal  theater. 
Tickets  were  even  cheaper  than  in  Coblenz,  none  of  them  as 
high  as  four  marks,  even  with  war  tax,  poor  tax,  and  "ward- 
robe." The  house  was  crowded  with  the  serious-minded 
of  all  classes,  Poles  as  well  as  Germans;  the  actors  were  of 
higher  histrionic  ability  than  the  average  American  town 
of  the  size  of  Bromberg  sees  once  a  year.  Yet  equally 
splendid  performances  were  offered  here  at  these  slight 
prices  all  the  year  round.  As  I  strolled  hotelward  with  that 
pleasant  sensation  of  satisfaction  that  comes  from  an  evening 
of  genuine  entertainment,  I  could  not  but  wonder  whether 
this,  and  those  other  undeniable  advantages  of  German 
Kultur,  whatever  sins  might  justly  be  charged  against  it, 
would  be  kept  up  after  the  Poles  had  taken  Bromberg  into 
their  own  keeping. 

As  to  the  walking  trip  through  these  eastern  provinces 
which  I  had  planned,  fate  was  once  more  against  me.  I 
might,  to  be  sure,  have  set  out  on  foot  toward  the  region 
already  amputated  from  the  Empire,  but  in  the  course 
of  an  hour  I  should  have  had  the  privilege  of  walking  back 
again.  The  German-Polish  front  was  just  six  kilometers 
from  Bromberg,  and  a  wandering  stranger  would  have  had 
exactly  the  same  chance  of  crossing  its  succession  of  trenches 
as  of  entering  Germany  from  France  a  year  before.  The 
one  and  only  way  of  reaching  the  province  of  Posen  was 
by  train  from  the  village  of  Kreuz,  back  along  the  railway 
by  which  I  had  come. 

The  place  had  all  the  appearance  of  an  international 
frontier,  a  frontier  hastily  erected  and  not  yet  in  efficient 
running  order.  Arrangements  for  examining  travelers  and 
baggage  consisted  only  of  an  improvised  fence  along  the 
station  platform,  strewn  pellmell  with  a  heterogeneous 

214 


SENTENCED  TO  AMPUTATION 

throng  bound  in  both  directions,  and  their  multifarious 
coffers  and  bundles.  The  soldiers  who  patrolled  the  line 
of  demarkation  with  fixed  bayonets  were  callow,  thin-faced 
youths,  or  men  past  middle  age  who  had  plainly  reached 
the  stage  of  uselessness  as  combat  troops.  All  wore  on 
their  collars  the  silver  oak-leaves  of  the  recently  formed 
"frontier  guard."  Their  manner  toward  the  harassed 
travelers  was  either  brutal  or  cringingly  friendly.  The 
Germans  in  civilian  garb  who  examined  passports  and 
baggage  were  cantankerous  and  gruff,  as  if  they  resented 
the  existence  of  a  frontier  where  the  Fatherland  had  never 
admitted  that  a  frontier  existed.  They  vented  their  wrath 
especially  against  men  of  military  age  who  wished  to  enter 
Polish  territory — and  their  interpretation  of  their  duties 
in  that  respect  was  by  no  means  charitable.  Among  others, 
a  wretched  little  dwarf  past  fifty,  whom  a  glance  sufficed 
to  recognize  as  useless  from  a  military  point  of  view,  even 
had  his  papers  not  been  stamped  with  the  official  Un- 
tauglich,  was  wantonly  turned  back.  Many  a  family 
was  left  only  the  choice  of  abandoning  the  attempt  to 
reach  its  home  or  of  leaving  its  adult  male  members  behind. 
The  churls  allowed  me  to  pass  readily  enough,  but 
rescinded  their  action  a  moment  later.  Once  beyond  the 
barrier,  I  had  paused  to  photograph  the  pandemonium  that 
reigned  about  it.  A  lieutenant  bellowed  and  a  group  of 
soldiers  and  officials  quickly  swarmed  about  me.  Did  I 
not  know  that  photography  was  forbidden  at  the  front? 
I  protested  that  the  station  scenes  of  Kreuz  could  scarcely 
be  called  military  information.  What  of  that?  I  knew 
that  it  was  within  the  zone  of  the  armies,  did  I  not  ?  Rules 
were  rules;  it  was  not  the  privilege  of  every  Tom,  Dick, 
and  Harry  to  interpret  them  to  his  own  liking.  A  lean, 
hawk-faced  civilian,  who  seemed  to  be  in  command,  ordered 
me  to  open  my  kodak  and  confiscated  the  film  it  contained. 
If  I  set  great  store  by  the  pictures  on  it,  he  would  have  it 

215 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

developed  by  the  military  authorities  and  let  me  have  those 
that  proved  harmless,  upon  my  return.  I  thanked  him 
for  his  leniency  and  strolled  toward  the  compartment  I 
had  chosen.  Before  I  had  reached  it  he  called  me  back. 

"Let  me  see  your  papers  again,"  he  demanded,  in  a  far 
gruffer  tone. 

He  glanced  casually  at  them,  thrust  them  into  a  pocket 
of  his  coat,  and  snapped  angrily:  "Get  your  baggage  off 
the  train!  I  am  not  going  to  let  you  through." 

It  was  plain  that  he  was  acting  from  personal  rather  than 
official  motives.  Probably  he  considered  my  failure  to 
raise  my  hat  and  to  smile  the  sycophant  smile  with  which  my 
fellow-passengers  addressed  him  as  an  affront  to  his  high 
Prussian  caste.  Fortunately  he  was  not  alone  in  command. 
A  more  even-tempered  official  without  his  dyspeptic  lean- 
ness beckoned  him  aside  and  whispered  in  his  ear.  Perhaps 
he  called  his  attention  to  the  importance  of  my  credentials 
from  Wilhelmstrasse.  At  any  rate,  he  surrendered  my 
papers  after  some  argument,  with  an  angry  shrug  of  the 
shoulders,  and  his  less  hungry-looking  companion  brought 
them  back  to  me. 

"It  has  all  been  arranged,"  he  smirked.  "You  may  take 
the  train." 

This  was  still  manned  by  a  German  crew.  For  every 
car  that  left  their  territory,  however,  the  Poles  required 
that  one  of  the  same  class  and  condition  be  delivered  to 
them  in  exchange.  Several  long  freight-trains,  loaded 
from  end  to  end  with  potatoes,  rumbled  past  us  on  the 
parallel  track.  Two  hundred  thousand  tons  of  tubers 
were  sent  to  Germany  each  month  in  exchange  for  coal. 
It  was  at  that  date  the  only  commercial  intercourse  between 
the  two  countries,  and  explained  why  potatoes  were  the  one 
foodstuff  of  comparative  abundance  even  in  Berlin.  At 
Biala  the  station  guards  were  Polish,  but  there  was  little 
indeed  to  distinguish  them  from  those  of  Kreuz  and  Brom- 

216 


SENTENCED  TO  AMPUTATION 

berg.  Their  uniforms,  their  rifles,  every  detail  of  their 
equipment,  were  German,  except  that  some  of  them  wore 
the  square  and  rather  clumsy-looking  Polish  cap  or  had 
decorated  their  round,  red-banded  fatigue  bonnets  with 
the  silver  double-eagle  of  the  resurrected  empire.  Many 
were  without  even  this  insignia  of  their  new  allegiance,  and 
only  the  absence  of  oak-leaves  on  their  collars  showed  that 
they  were  no  longer  soldiers  of  the  Fatherland. 

We  halted  at  Wronki  for  two  hours,  which  made  our 
departure  three  hours  later,  for  clocks  and  watches  were 
turned  ahead  to  correspond  with  Polish  time.  Frontier 
formalities  were  even  more  leisurely  and  disorganized  than 
they  had  been  in  Kreuz.  The  Poles  seemed  to  have  some- 
thing of  the  amiable  but  headless  temperament  of  the  French. 
Their  officers,  too,  in  their  impressive  new  uniforms  with 
broad  red  or  yellow  bands,  and  their  rattling  sabers,  bore 
a  certain  resemblance  to  children  on  Christmas  morning 
that  did  not  help  to  expedite  matters  under  their  jurisdiction. 
They  were  a  bit  less  "snappy"  than  the  more  experienced 
Germans,  somewhat  inclined  to  strut  and  to  flirt,  and  there 
were  suggestions  in  their  manner  that  they  might  not  have 
been  horrified  at  the  offer  of  a  tip.  When  at  length  my 
turn  had  come  they  found  my  credentials  unsatisfactory. 
Why  had  they  not  been  viseed  by  the  Polish  consul  in  Berlin, 
as  well  as  by  the  Germans  at  Frankfurt?  I  had  never 
dreamed  that  Berlin  boasted  a  Polish  consul.  Indeed! 
Who,  then,  did  I  suppose  handled  the  interests  of  their 
nation  there?  However,  it  was  all  right.  As  an  American 
and  a  fellow-Ally  they  would  let  me  pass.  But  I  must 
promise  to  report  at  a  certain  office  in  Posen  within  twenty- 
four  hours  of  my  arrival. 

Barefoot  boys  were  selling  huge  slabs  of  bread  and  gener- 
ous lengths  of  sausage  through  the  car  windows.  All  things 
are  relative,  and  to  the  travelers  from  Germany  these 
"ticket-free"  viands  of  doubtful  origin  seemed  a  kingly 

217 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

repast.  With  every  mile  forward  now  it  was  easier  to 
understand  why  the  loss  of  the  province  of  Posen  had  been 
so  serious  a  blow  to  the  hungry  Empire.  Here  were  no 
arid,  sandy  stretches,  but  an  endless  expanse  of  rich  black 
loam,  capable  of  feeding  many  times  its  rather  sparse 
population.  If  it  had  been  "pumped  dry"  by  the  former 
oppressors,  it  was  already  well  on  the  road  to  recovery. 
Wheat,  corn,  and  potatoes  covered  the  flat  plains  to  the 
horizons  on  either  hand.  Cattle  and  sheep  were  by  no 
means  rare;  pigs,  goats,  ducks,  and  chickens  flocked  about 
every  village  and  farm-house,  evidently  living  in  democratic 
equality  with  the  human  inhabitants.  There  were  other 
suggestions  that  we  were  approaching  the  easy-going  East. 
Men  in  high  Russian  boots  sauntered  behind  their  draft 
animals  with  the  leisureliness  of  those  who  know  the  world 
was  not  built  in  a  day,  nor  yet  in  a  year.  Churches  of 
Oriental  aspect,  with  steep  roofs  that  were  still  not  Gothic, 
broke  the  sameness  of  the  prevailing  German  architecture. 
There  was  something  softly  un-Occidental  in  the  atmosphere 
of  the  great  city  into  which  we  rumbled  at  sunset,  a  city 
which  huge  new  sign-boards  on  the  station  platform  stri- 
dently announced  was  no  longer  Posen,  but  "Poznan." 


XI 

AN   AMPUTATED   MEMBER 
(Posen  under  the  Poles) 

'"THE  same  spirit  that  had  led  the  Poles  to  impress  so 
-•*-  forcibly  upon  the  traveler  the  fact  that  the  city  in 
which  he  had  just  arrived  was  now  called  Poznan  (pro- 
nounced Poznanya)  had  manifested  itself  in  a  thousand 
other  changes.  In  so  far  as  time  had  permitted,  every 
official  sign-board  had  already  been  rendered  into  Polish 
and  the  detested  German  ones  cast  into  outer  darkness. 
Only  those  familiar  with  the  Slavic  tongue  of  the  new 
rulers  could  have  guessed  what  all  those  glitteringly  new 
enameled  placards  that  adorned  the  still  Boche-featured 
station  were  commanding  them  to  do  or  not  to  do.  Every 
street  in  town  had  been  baptized  into  the  new  faith  and 
gaily  boasted  that  fact  on  every  corner.  For  a  time  the 
names  had  been  announced  in  both  languages,  as  in  Metz; 
but  a  month  or  so  before  my  arrival  the  radicals  had  pre- 
vailed and  the  older  placards  had  been  abolished.  True, 
in  most  cases  the  new  ones  were  merely  translations  of  the 
old.  But  what  did  it  help  the  German  resident  who  had 
neglected  to  learn  Polish  to  know  that  the  "Alte  Markt" 
was  still  the  "Old  Market"  so  long  as  he  could  not  recognize 
it  under  the  new  designation  of  "Stary  Rynek"?  Imagine, 
if  you  can,  the  sensation  of  waking  up  some  morning  to 
find  that  Main  Street  has  become  Ulica  G16wna,  or  to 
discover  that  the  street-car  you  had  always  taken  no 
longer  runs  to  Forest  Park  but  to  Ogrott  Lass. 

219 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

Nothing  but  the  few  things  that  defied  quick  change, 
such  as  post-boxes  or  names  deeply  cut  into  stone  facades, 
had  escaped  the  all-embracing  renovation.  Indeed,  many 
of  these  had  been  deliberately  defaced.  The  cast-iron 
"Haltestelle  der  Strassenbahn  "  high  up  on  the  trolley- 
supports  had  been  daubed  with  red  paint,  though  they 
were  still  recognizable  to  motormen  and  would-be  pas- 
sengers. Many  business  houses  had  followed  the  official 
lead,  and  private  signs  were  more  apt  than  not  to  have 
the  German  words  that  had  once  called  attention  to  the 
excellence  of  the  wares  within  crudely  effaced  or  changed 
to  the  new  tongue.  Sometimes  it  was  not  merely  the 
language  that  had  been  altered,  but  the  whole  tenor  of  the 
proprietor's  allegiance.  A  popular  underground  beer-hall 
in  the  heart  of  town  was  no  longer  the  "Bismarck  Tunnel," 
but  the  "Tunel  Wilsona."  German  trucks  thundering  by 
on  their  iron  tires  bore  the  white  eagle  of  Poland  instead 
of  the  black  Prussian  bird  of  prey.  German  newspapers 
were  still  published,  but  as  the  streets  they  mentioned 
were  nowhere  to  be  found  in  all  Poznan,  their  advertisements 
and  much  of  their  news  were  rather  pointless.  It  gave  me  a 
curiously  helpless  feeling  to  find  myself  for  the  first  time  in 
years  unable  to  guess  a  word  of  the  language  about  me. 
Fortunately  all  Poznan  still  spoke  German.  Only  once 
during  my  stay  there  did  I  find  myself  hampered  by  my 
ignorance  of  Polish — when  a  theater-ticket  office  proved  to 
be  in  charge  of  a  pair  recently  arrived  from  Warsaw.  On 
more  than  one  occasion  my  advances  were  received  coldly, 
sometimes  with  scowls.  But  a  reply  was  always  forth- 
coming, and  whenever  I  announced  myself  an  American, 
who  spoke  the  less  welcome  of  the  two  tongues  by  necessity 
rather  than  by  choice,  apology  and  friendly  overtures  im- 
mediately followed. 

Having  effaced  the  lingual  reminders  of  their  late  oppres- 
sors, the  Poznanians  had  proceeded  to  pay  their  respects 

220 


AN  AMPUTATED  MEMBER 

to  the  bronze  heroes  they  had  left  behind.  The  Germans, 
as  is  their  custom,  had  littered  the  public  squares  with 
statues  of  their  chief  sword-brandishers,  in  gigantic  size — 
tender  reminders  to  the  conquered  people  of  the  blessings 
that  had  been  forced  upon  them.  The  downfall  of  these 
had  been  sudden  and  unceremonious.  Some  had  descended 
so  hastily  that  the  allegorical  figures  at  their  feet  had  suffered 
the  fate  so  often  overtaking  faithful  henchmen  of  the  fallen 
mighty.  The  stone  image  of  an  old  woman  representing 
"Sorrow"  looked  doubly  sorrowful  with  broken  nose,  legs, 
and  fingers.  Kaiser  Friedrich,  Doctor  Bismarck  with  his 
panacea  of  "blood  and  iron,"  the  world-famed  Wilhelm, 
had  all  left  behind  them  imposing  pedestals,  like  university 
chairs  awaiting  exponents  of  newer  and  more  lasting  doc- 
trines. Here  and  there  a  statue  had  remained,  because  it 
was  Polish,  but  these  were  few  and  small  and  tucked  away 
into  the  more  obscure  corners. 

Next  to  its  change  of  tongue  the  most  striking  feature 
of  the  new  Poznan  was  its  military  aspect.  The  streets 
swarmed  with  soldiers  even  during  the  day;  in  the  evening 
the  chief  gathering-places  became  pulsating  seas  of  field 
gray.  For  it  was  still  the  garb  of  their  former  servitude 
that  clothed  the  vast  majority  of  these  warriors  of  the 
reborn  nation.  The  silver  double-eagle  on  his  service-faded 
cap  was  all  that  was  needed  to  turn  a  wearer  of  the  German 
uniform  into  a  soldier  of  Poland.  Many  still  wore  their 
"Gott  mil  Uns"  belt-buckles  and  their  Prussian  buttons. 
A  scattering  minority,  officers  for  the  most  part,  were  con- 
spicuous in  the  full  new  Polish  uniform — double-breasted, 
with  a  forest-green  tinge.  The  high,  square  cap,  distinctive 
only  of  the  province  of  Poznan,  was  more  widely  in  evidence; 
the  less  cumbersome  headgear  of  military  visitors  from 
Warsaw  or  Galizia  now  and  then  broke  the  red-banded 
monotony.  But  the  only  universal  sign  of  new  fealty 
was  the  silver  double-eagle.  This  gleamed  everywhere. 

221 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

Men  in  civilian  garb  wore  it  on  their  hats  or  in  their  coat 
lapels;  women  adorned  their  bodices  with  it;  boys  and  girls 
proudly  displayed  it  in  some  conspicuous  position.  It 
fluttered  on  a  thousand  banners;  it  bedecked  every  Polish 
shop-front;  it  stared  from  the  covers  of  newly  appeared 
books,  pamphlets,  music-sheets  in  the  popular  tongue; 
the  very  church  spires  had  replaced  their  crosses  with  it. 
One  could  buy  the  resurrected  insignia,  of  any  size  or  ma- 
terial, in  almost  any  shop — providing  one  could  produce 
"legitimation  papers"  or  other  proof  that  it  would  not  be 
used  to  disguise  a  German  as  a  Pole. 

An  over-abundance  of  swords  tended  to  give  the  new 
army  a  comic-opera  aspect,  but  this  detail  was  offset  by  the 
genuine  military  bearing  of  all  but  a  few  of  the  multitude 
in  uniform.  The  great  majority,  of  course,  had  had  German 
training.  Now,  however,  they  put  the  "pep"  of  a  new 
game  into  the  old  forms  of  soldierly  etiquette.  Their  two- 
finger  salute  was  rendered  with  the  precision  of  ambitious 
recruits  and  at  the  same  time  with  the  exactitude  of  "old- 
timers."  They  sprang  unfailingly  to  attention  at  sight 
of  a  superior  officer  and  stood  like  automatons  until  he 
turned  away.  Yet  there  seemed  to  be  an  un-German 
comradeship  between  the  rank  and  file  and  the  commis- 
sioned personnel,  a  democracy  of  endeavor,  a  feeling  that 
they  were  all  embarked  together  on  the  same  big  new 
adventure.  There  were,  to  be  sure,  some  officers  and  a 
few  men  whose  sidewalk  manners  suggested  that  they  had 
learned  Prussian  ways  a  bit  too  thoroughly,  but  they  were 
lost  in  a  mass  that  had  something  of  the  easy-going  tem- 
perament of  the  East  or  the  South. 

All  classes  of  the  Polish  population  were  represented  in 
the  new  army  from  the  bulking  countryman  who  ran  after 
me  to  say  that  the  photograph  I  had  just  taken  of  him 
would  not  be  a  success  because  he  had  not  been  looking 
at  the  lens  during  the  operation  to  the  major  who  granted 

222 


AN  AMPUTATED  MEMBER 

me  special  permission  to  use  my  kodak  in  spite  of  military 
rules.  This  officer  had  been  late  in  reaching  his  office,  and 
I  passed  the  time  in  his  anteroom  in  conversation  with  his 
sergeant-major.  When  he  entered  at  last  the  entire  office 
force  sprang  to  its  feet  with  what  in  an  older  army  would 
have  been  an  exaggeration  of  discipline.  The  sergeant- 
major,  his  middle  finger  glued  to  the  seams  of  his  trousers, 
explained  my  presence  and  request.  The  major  asked 
several  questions  in  Polish,  which  the  sergeant  repeated  to 
me  in  German,  relaying  my  replies  back  to  the  major  in 
his  native  tongue.  When  the  latter  had  nodded  his  approval 
and  disappeared,  and  the  office  force  had  relaxed  into  mere 
human  beings,  I  expressed  my  surprise  that  an  officer  of 
such  high  rank  knew  no  German. 

"Knows  no  German!"  cried  the  sergeant-major,  bursting 
into  laughter.  "The  major  was  for  nine  years  a  captain  in 
the  German  army.  He  is  a  graduate  of  the  War  College 
in  Berlin  and  was  a  member  of  Hindenburg's  staff.  But 
he  never  lets  a  word  of  the  accursed  tongue  pass  his  lips  if 
he  can  possibly  avoid  it.' 

The  new  Polish  government  had  established  a  conscrip- 
tion act  as  drastic  as  if  it  had  been  taken  bodily  from  the 
old  German  statute-books.  All  males  between  the  ages 
of  seventeen  and  forty-five  were  liable  to  service.  Those 
between  eighteen  and  thirty  had  already  been  called  to 
the  colors,  though  thus  far  German  residents  had  been 
tacitly  exempted.  Every  afternoon  of  my  stay  in  Poznan 
a  hundred  or  two  of  recruits,  flower-bedecked  and  carrying 
each  his  carton  of  travel  rations,  marched  in  column  of 
squads  from  the  railway  station  to  what  had  once  been  the 
Kaiser's  barracks,  singing  as  they  went  some  rousing  Polish 
song  of  the  olden  days.  At  least  half  of  them  wore  more  or 
less  complete  German  uniforms.  Some  were  so  under- 
sized that  a  rifle  in  their  hands  would  have  resembled  a 
machine-gun.  But  with  few  exceptions  their  military  bear- 

223 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

ing  testified  to  previous  training  under  the  exacting  drill- 
sergeants  of  their  former  rulers.  Watching  this  new  addi- 
tion each  day  to  the  hordes  in  uniform  that  already  crowded 
the  city,  one  could  not  but  wonder  whether  the  new  Poland 
was  not  giving  refuge,  perhaps  unconsciously,  to  the  dis- 
credited spirit  of  militarism  that  had  so  recently  been 
expelled  from  its  German  Fatherland. 

The  "revolution,"  or  "Putsch,"  as  the  Poles  call  it,  that 
brought  about  all  this  new  state  of  affairs  had  been  brief 
and  to  the  point.  Paderewski,  relying,  perhaps,  on  Ger- 
many's promise  to  help  re-establish  the  ancient  Polish 
Kingdom,  had  come  to  Posen  for  the  Christmas  holidays. 
The  hotel  he  occupied  had  been  decorated  with  the  flags 
of  the  Allies.  It  is  scarcely  surprising  that  the  Germans 
proceeded  to  tear  them  down  in  spite  of  the  armistice  that 
had  recently  been  concluded.  According  to  several  ob- 
servers, they  might  even  have  "got  away  with"  this  had 
they  not  persisted  in  their  Prussian  aggressiveness.  On 
December  27th  a  Polish  youth  paused  to  ask  another  for  a 
light  from  his  cigarette.  Matches  had  long  been  precious 
things  in  Posen.  A  German  officer  pounced  upon  the  pair 
and  demanded  to  know  what  conspiracy  they  were  hatching 
together.  The  Polish  youths  quite  properly  knocked  him 
down.  Their  companions  joined  in  the  fracas.  The  Polish 
turnvereins  had  long  had  everything  prepared  for  just 
such  an  eventuality.  Word  swept  like  prairie  fire  through 
the  city.  French  and  Italian  prisoners  of  war  sprang  to 
such  arms  as  they  could  lay  hands  on  and  added  their 
assistance.  The  soldiers  of  the  garrison,  being  chiefly 
Poles  or  of  Polish  sympathies,  walked  out  almost  in  a  body 
and  joined  the  revolt.  It  raged  for  twenty-four  hours. 
In  the  words  of  the  sergeant-major  already  introduced: 
"It  was  a  busy  day  from  four  in  the  morning  until  the  fol- 
lowing dawn.  At  least  sixty  ribs  were  broken — mostly 
German  ones."  There  have  been  bloodier  revolutions, 

224 


however,  for  the  number  killed  is  set  at  ten.  The  Polish 
leaders  were  soon  masters  of  the  situation.  In  three  days 
they  had  established  order.  Their  search  for  arms  was 
thorough  and  included  Polish  as  well  as  German  houses. 
The  government  they  had  already  established  in  secret  soon 
tautened  the  reins  that  had  been  struck  from  the  hands  of 
the  Germans,  and  by  New  Year's  Day  Poznan  had  already 
settled  down  to  peace  and  to  a  contentment  it  had  not 
known  in  more  than  a  century. 

As  far,  at  least,  as  outward  appearances  go,  there  was 
nothing  particularly  oppressive  about  the  new  rule.  Civil' 
ians  were  not  permitted  on  the  streets  after  midnight,  but 
those  with  any  legitimate  excuse  for  night-hawking  were 
granted  special  passes.  The  Poles  showed  a  tendency  to 
meet  half-way  their  next-door  neighbor  and  late  oppressor. 
With  the  exception  of  a  few  "Polen-fresser,"  German  resi- 
dents were  not  driven  out,  as  in  Metz  and  Strassburg. 
Boche  merchants  continued  to  do  business  at  the  old  stand. 
Newspapers  published  in  Germany  were  refused  admittance, 
but  that  was  a  fair  retaliation  for  similar  action  by  the  new 
authorities  of  the  late  Empire.  Even  the  detested  statues 
were  not  overthrown  until  March,  when  the  Germans  de- 
clined to  give  the  Poles  port  facilities  at  Danzig.  The  lan- 
guage of  the  schools,  as  well  as  of  government  offices,  was 
changed  to  Polish;  but  as  soon  as  Berlin  consented  to  a 
reciprocal  arrangement,  German  was  restored  to  the  cur- 
riculum, though  it  was  taught  only  a  few  hours  a  week,  as  a 
foreign  tongue.  In  short,  the  conditions  of  Bromberg  had 
been  nicely  reversed  in  Poznan.  It  must,  to  be  sure,  have 
been  rather  a  tough  life  for  the  town  braggart  who  had 
always  espoused  the  German  cause;  but  there  was  appar- 
ently nothing  to  be  feared  by  those  who  know  how  to  hold 
their  tongues  and  confine  their  attention  to  their  own 
affairs — and  the  German  is  a  past-master  at  lying  low  when 

it  is  to  his  interest  to  do  so.    His  native  tongue  was  almost 

225 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

never  heard  on  the  streets,  such  arrogance  as  existed  was 
confined  now  to  the  Poles,  and  the  just-let-us-alone-and- 
we'11-be-good  r61e  had  been  assumed  by  the  Teutons. 

There  were  suggestions,  however,  that  the  Poles  were 
not  yet  adepts  at  governing,  nor  likely  soon  to  establish  a 
modern  Utopia.  Already  they  had  succeeded  in  encumber- 
ing themselves  with  fully  as  much  red- tape  as  the  French. 
A  musician  as  national  leader  and  rallying-point  seemed 
to  be  in  keeping  with  the  Polish  temperament.  There  was  a 
lack  of  practical  directness  in  their  methods,  a  tendency 
toward  the  erratic,  at  the  expense  of  orderly  progress. 
One  of  their  foremost  business  men  turned  high  official, 
to  whom  I  applied  for  a  signature  and  the  imprint  of  a 
government  stamp,  received  me  with  a  protest  that  he  was 
"too  busy  to  breathe" — and  spent  two  hours  reciting 
Polish  poetry  to  me  and  demonstrating  how  he  had  succeeded 
in  photographing  every  secret  document  that  had  reached 
Posen  during  the  war  without  being  once  suspected  by  the 
Germans.  "I  am  not  experienced  in  this  business  of 
government,"  he  apologized,  when  I  succeeded  at  last  in 
taking  my  leave,  "but  I  am  ready  to  sacrifice  myself  and 
all  I  have  to  the  new  Poland." 

The  statement  rang  true  in  his  case,  but  there  were  others 
whose  repetition  of  it  would  have  raised  grave  suspicions 
that  they  were  putting  the  cart  before  the  horse.  The 
rush  for  government  jobs  under  the  new  regime  had  in  it 
something  of  the  attitude  of  the  faithful  henchmen  toward 
the  periodical  return  to  power  of  their  beloved  Tammany. 
There  were  tender  reminiscences  of  the  A.  E.  F.  in  the 
flocks  of  incompetent  pretty  girls  who  encumbered  govern- 
ment offices,  dipping  their  charming  noses  into  everything 
except  that  which  concerned  them,  as  there  was  in  the 
tendency  on  the  part  of  both  sexes  to  consider  government 
transportation  synonymous  with  opportunity  for  "joy- 
riding."  It  will  be  strange  if  the  Polish  servant-girls  and 

226 


AN  AMPUTATED  MEMBER 

factory  hands  who  come  to  us  in  the  future  bring  with  them 
the  accept-anything  spirit  of  the  past,  at  least  after  the  period 
of  orientation  to  their  new  environment  is  over.  They  are 
"feeling  their  oats"  at  home  now  and  will  be  apt  to  set 
their  worth  and  their  rights  to  full  equality  correspondingly 
higher. 

The  Poles,  evidently,  are  not  by  nature  a  frolicsome 
people,  but  they  seemed  to  have  thrown  away  the  "lid" 
in  Poznan  and  given  free  play  to  all  the  joy  within  them. 
Pianos  were  more  in  evidence  than  they  had  been  during 
all  the  twenty  months  I  had  spent  in  war-torn  Europe. 
Children  appeared  to  have  taken  on  a  new  gaiety.  Night 
life  was  almost  Parisian,  except  in  the  more  reprehensible 
features  of  the  "City  of  Light."  It  may  have  been  due 
only  to  a  temporary  difference  of  mood  in  the  two  races, 
but  Polish  Poznan  struck  me  as  a  far  more  livable  place 
than  German  Berlin.  Evidently  the  people  of  the  prov- 
inces were  not  letting  this  new  attractiveness  of  the  restored 
city  escape  them;  the  newspapers  bristled  with  offers  of 
reward  for  any  one  giving  information  of  apartments  or 
houses  for  rent.  Underneath  their  merriness,  however, 
the  religious  current  of  the  race  still  ran  strong  and  swift. 
The  churches  discharged  multitudes  daily  at  the  end  of 
morning  mass;  no  male,  be  he  coachman,  policeman, 
soldier,  or  newsboy,  ever  passed  the  crucifix  at  the  end  of 
the  principal  bridge  without  reverently  raising  his  hat. 
There  are  Protestant  Poles,  but  they  apparently  do  not  live 
in  Poznan.  Now  and  again,  too,  there  were  episodes 
quite  the  opposite  of  gay  to  give  the  city  pause  in  the  midst 
of  its  revelry — the  drunken  sots  in  uniform,  for  instance, 
who  canvassed  the  shops  demanding  alms  and  prophesying 
the  firing-squad  for  those  who  declined  to  contribute. 
Were  they  not  perhaps  the  outposts  of  Bolshevism?  But 
all  this  was  immersed  in  the  general  gaiety,  tinged  with  a 
aiild  Orientalism  that  showed  itself  not  only  in  the  architect- 
16  227 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

ure,  but  in  such  leisurely  customs  as  closing  shops  and  offices 
from  one  to  three,  in  defiance  of  nearly  a  century  and  a  half 
of  the  sterner  German  influence. 

It  is  quite  possible  that  the  increased  liveliness  of  the 
Poznanians  was  as  much  due  to  the  fact  that  they  had 
plenty  to  eat  as  to  their  release  from  Teutonic  bondage. 
The  two  things  had  come  together.  Being  perhaps  the 
richest  agricultural  district  of  the  late  Empire,  the  province 
of  Posen  was  quick  to  recover  its  alimentary  footing,  once 
its  frontiers  had  been  closed  against  the  all-devouring 
German.  With  the  exception  of  potatoes,  of  which  the 
supply  was  well  in  excess  of  local  needs,  the  exportation  of 
foodstuffs  toward  the  hungry  West  had  absolutely  ceased. 
The  result  was  more  than  noticeable  in  Poznan;  it  was 
conspicuous,  all  but  overpowering,  particularly  to  those 
arriving  from  famished  Germany.  Street  after  street  was 
lined  with  a  constant  tantalization  to  the  new-comer  from 
the  West,  arousing  his  resentment  at  the  appetite  that. was 
so  easily  satisfied  after  its  constant  vociferations  in  days  gone 
by — and  still  to  come.  Butcher  shops  displayed  an  abun- 
dance of  everything  from  frankfurters  to  sides  of  beef. 
Cheese,  butter,  eggs  by  the  bushel,  candy,  sugar,  sweet- 
meats were  heaped  high  behind  glass  fronts  that  would 
have  been  slight  protection  for  them  in  Berlin.  In  what 
were  now  known  as  " restauracya"  one  might  order  a  break- 
fast of  eggs,  bacon,  milk,  butter,  and  all  the  other  things 
the  mere  mention  of  which  would  have  turned  a  German 
Wirt  livid  with  rage,  without  so  much  as  exciting  a  ripple 
on  the  waiter's  brow.  At  the  rathskeller  of  Poznan's 
artistic  old  city  hall  a  "steak  and  everything,"  such  a  steak 
as  not  even  a  war-profiteer  could  command  anywhere  in 
Germany,  cost  a  mere  seven  marks,  including  the  inevitable 
mug  of  beer  and  the  "10  per  cent,  for  service"  that  was 
exacted  here  also  by  the  Kellners'  union.  With  the  low 
rate  of  exchange — for  Poznan  was  still  using  German 

228 


AN  AMPUTATED  MEMBER 

money — the  price  was  considerably  less  than  it  would  have 
been  in  New  York  at  the  same  date.  Far  from  being  short 
of  fats,  the  Poles  were  overgenerous  with  their  grease  and 
gravies.  Bacon  could  be  had  in  any  quantity  at  six  marks 
a  pound;  eggs  at  thirty  pfennigs  each.  Bread,  brown  but 
excellent,  was  unlimited.  Food-tickets,  unknown  in  hotels 
and  restaurants,  were  theoretically  required  for  a  few  of  the 
principal  articles  in  the  shops,  but  there  was  little  difficulty 
in  purchasing  without  them,  at  least  with  the  payment  of  a 
slight  "premium."  On  market-days  the  immense  square 
allotted  to  them  was  densely  crowded  from  corner  to  corner 
by  curiously  garbed  female  hawkers  and  countrymen  offering 
every  conceivable  product  of  their  farms  and  gardens. 
Poznan  still  consumed  a  few  things  that  do  not  appear  on 
the  American  bill  of  fare,  such  as  doves,  gull  eggs,  and 
various  species  of  weeds  and  grasses;  but  the  fact  remains 
that  the  well-to-do  could  get  anything  their  appetites 
craved,  and  the  poor  were  immensely  better  off  than  in  any 
city  of  Germany.  There  was  only  one  shortage  that  irked 
the  popular  soul.  Expression  of  it  rang  incessantly  in  my 
ears — "Please  tell  America  to  send  us  tobacco!"  The 
queues  before  tobacconists'  shops  were  as  long  and  as  per- 
sistent as  in  Germany.  Ragged  men  of  the  street  eagerly 
parted  with  a.  precious  fifty-pfennig  "shin-plaster"  for  a 
miserable  "cigarette"  filled  for  only  half  its  length  with  an 
unsuccessful  imitation  of  tobacco.  The  principal  cafe, 
having  husbanded  its  supply  of  the  genuine  article,  placed 
a  thousand  of  them  on  sale  each  evening  at  eight,  "as  a 
special  favor  to  our  clients."  By  that  hour  entrance  was 
quite  impossible,  and  though  only  two  were  allowed  each 
purchaser,  there  was  nothing  but  the  empty  box  left  five 
minutes  later. 

Unselfishness  is  not  one  of  mankind's  chief  virtues,  partic- 
ularly in  that  chaos  of  conflicting  interests  known  to  the 

world  as  central  Europe.    In  view  of  all  they  had  won  in 

229 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

so  short  a  time,  and  amid  the  German  shrieks  of  protest, 
it  was  disconcerting  to  find  that  the  Poles  were  far  from 
satisfied  with  what  had  been  granted  them  by  the  Peace 
Conference.  From  high  government  officials  to  the  man  in 
the  street  they  deluged  me  with  their  complaints,  often 
naively  implying  that  I  had  personally  had  some  hand  in 
framing  the  terms  of  the  proposed  treaty,  or  at  least  the 
power  to  have  them  altered  before  it  was  too  late.  They 
were  dissatisfied  with  the  western  frontier  that  had  been 
set  for  them,  especially  in  West  Prussia;  they  were  particu- 
larly disgruntled  because  they  had  not  been  given  Danzig 
outright.  A  nation  of  thirty  million  people  should  have  a 
harbor  of  its  own.  Danzig  was  essentially  Polish  in  its 
sympathies,  in  spite  of  the  deliberate  Germanization  that 
had  been  practised  upon  it.  Strangely  enough  they  accused 
America  of  having  blocked  their  aspirations  in  that  particu- 
lar. They  blamed  Wilson  personally  for  having  shut  them 
out  of  Danzig,  as  well  as  for  the  annoying  delay  in  drawing 
up  the  treaty.  The  Germans  had  "got  at  him"  through 
the  Jews.  The  latter  had  far  too  much  power  in  the  Amer- 
ican government,  as  well  as  in  American  finances.  The 
impression  was  wide-spread  in  Poznan  that  Mrs.  Wilson  is 
Jewish.  The  Germans  and  the  Jews  had  always  stuck 
together.  Poland  had  always  been  far  too  lenient  with  the 
Jews.  She  had  let  them  in  too  easily;  had  granted  them 
citizenship  too  readily.  As  they  spoke  either  Yiddish, 
an  offshoot  of  German,  or  Russian,  they  had  always  lined 
up  with  the  enemies  of  Poland.  Half  the  German  spies, 
every  one  of  the  Russian  spies  with  whom  Polish  territory 
had  been  flooded  during  the  war,  had  been  Jews.  The  Poles 
in  America  had  gathered  money  for  the  alleviation  of  suf- 
fering in  their  home-land,  and  had  given  it  to  Jews,  Ger- 
mans, and  Poles,  irrespective  of  race.  The  Jews  in  America 
had  collected  similar  funds  and  had  expended  them  only 
among  the  Jews.  From  whatever  point  of  view  one  ap- 

230 


AN  AMPUTATED  MEMBER 

preached  him,  the  resident  of  Poznan  had  nothing  good  to 
say  of  the  Chosen  People. 

The  story  of  Posen's  existence  under  German  rule,  now 
happily  ended,  was  largely  a  repetition  of  what  had  already 
been  told  me  in  Bromberg.  In  some  ways  this  region  had 
been  even  more  harshly  treated,  if  my  informants  were 
trustworthy.  Polish  skilled  workmen  "clear  down  to 
button-makers"  had  been  driven  out  of  the  province. 
Great  numbers  had  been  more  or  less  forcibly  compelled 
to  migrate  into  Germany.  There  were  at  least  four  hundred 
thousand  Poles  in  the  mines  and  factories  of  Westphalia. 
Saxony  was  half  Polish;  the  district  between  Hamburg 
and  Bremen  was  almost  entirely  Slavish  in  population. 
The  Ansiedler — the  German  settlers  whom  the  government 
had  brought  to  Posen — had  acquired  all  the  best  land. 
On  the  other  hand,  German  Catholics  were  not  allowed  to 

!  establish  themselves  in  the  province  of  Posen,  lest  they 
join  their  coreligionists  against  the  Protestant  oppressors. 
Perhaps  the  thing  that  rankled  most  was  the  banishment 
of  the  Polish  language  from  the  schools.  One  could  scarcely 
speak  it  with  one's  children  at  home,  for  fear  of  their  using 
it  before  the  teacher.  Many  of  the  youngsters  had  never 
more  than  half  learned  it.  In  twenty  years  more  no  one 
would  have  dared  speak  Polish  in  public.  Men  had  been 
given  three,  and  even  four,  months  in  prison  for  privately 
teaching  their  children  Polish  history.  The  schools  were 
hopelessly  Prussianized;  the  German  teachers  received  a 
special  premium  of  one  thousand  marks  or  more  a  year 
over  the  regular  salaries.  All  railway  jobs  went  to  Germans, 
except  those  of  section  men  at  two  marks  a  day.  There 
had  been  Polish  newspapers  and  theaters,  but  they  had 
never  been  allowed  any  freedom  of  thought  or  action. 

"The  trouble  with  the  German,  or  at  least  the  Prussian," 
one  new  official  put  in,  "is  that  it  is  his  nature  to  get  things 
by  force.  He  was  born  that  way.  Why,  the  Prussians 

231 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

stole  even  their  name;  it  was  originally  Barrusen,  as  the 
little  corner  of  Russia  was  called  where  the  robbers  first 
banded  together.  They  marauded  their  way  westward 
and  southward,  treading  first  little  people  and  then  little 
nations  under  their  iron  heels.  The  very  word  the  German 
uses  for  "get"  or  "obtain"  tells  his  history.  It  is  kriegen, 
to  win  by  war — krieg.  You  seldom  hear  him  use  the 
gentler  bekommen.  Everything  he  possesses  he  has  gekriegt. 
Then  he  is  such  a  hypocrite!  In  1916,  when  we  Poles  first 
began  to  suffer  seriously  from  hunger,  some  German  officers 
came  with  baskets  of  fruit  and  sandwiches,  gathered  a 
group  of  Polish  urchins,  filled  their  hands  with  the  food, 
and  had  themselves  photographed  with  them,  to  show  the 
world  how  generous  and  kind-hearted  they  were.  But 
they  did  not  tell  the  world  that  the  moment  the  photographs 
had  been  taken  the  food  was  snatched  away  from  the 
hungry  children  again,  some  of  the  officers  boxing  their 
ears,  and  sent  back  to  the  German  barracks.  How  do  you 
think  the  Poles  who  have  been  crippled  for  life  fighting 
for  the  'Fatherland'  feel  as  they  hobble  about  our  streets? 
What  would  you  say  to  serving  five  years  in  the  German 
army  only  to  be  interned  as  a  dangerous  enemy  alien  at  the 
end  of  it,  as  is  the  case  with  thousands  of  our  sons  who  were 
not  able  to  get  across  the  frontier  in  time?  No,  the  Ger- 
mans in  Poznan  are  not  oppressed  as  our  people  were  under 
their  rule.  We  are  altogether  too  soft-hearted  with  them." 

The  German  residents  themselves,  as  was  to  be  expected, 
took  a  different  view  of  the  situation.  When  the  Polish 
authorities  had  decorated  my  passport  with  permission  to 
return  to  Berlin,  I  took  no  chances  of  being  held  up  by  the 
cantankerous  dyspeptic  at  Kreuz  and  applied  for  a  new 
vis6  by  the  German  Volksrat  of  Posen.  It  occupied  a 
modest  little  dwelling-house  on  the  wide,  curving  avenue 
no  longer  recognizable  under  its  former  title  of  "Kaiser 
Wilhelm  Ring."  Barely  had  I  established  my  identity 

232 


AN  AMPUTATED  MEMBER 

when  the  gloomy  Germans  took  me  to  their  bosom.  Had 
I  been  fully  informed  of  their  side  of  the  situation?  Would 
I  not  do  them  the  kindness  to  return  at  eleven,  when  they 
would  see  to  it  that  men  of  high  standing  were  there  to 
give  me  the  real  facts  of  the  case?  My  impressions  of  Posen 
would  be  wholly  false  if  I  left  it  after  having  consorted 
only  with  Poles. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  I  had  already  "consorted"  with  no 
small  number  of  German  residents,  chiefly  of  the  small- 
merchant  class.  Those  I  had  found  somewhat  mixed  in 
their  minds.  A  few  still  prophesied  a  "peasants'  war" 
in  the  territory  allotted  to  Poland;  a  number  of  them 
shivered  with  apprehension  of  a  "general  Bolshevist  up- 
rising." But  fully  as  many  pooh-poohed  both  those  cheer- 
ful bogies.  One  thing  only  was  certain — that  without 
exception  they  were  doing  business  as  usual  and  would 
continue  to  do  so  as  long  as  the  Poles  permitted  it.  The 
feeling  for  the  "Fatherland"  did  not  seem  strong  enough 
among  the  overwhelming  majority  of  them  to  stand  the 
strain  of  personal  sacrifice. 

When  I  returned  at  eleven  the  Volksrat  had  been  con- 
voked in  unofficial  special  session.  A  half-dozen  of  the  men 
who  had  formerly  held  high  places  in  the  Municipal  Council 
rose  ostentatiously  to  their  feet  as  I  was  ushered  into  the 
chief  sanctum,  and  did  not  sit  down  again  until  I  had  been 
comfortably  seated.  The  chief  spokesman  had  long  been 
something  corresponding  to  chairman  of  the  Board  of 
Aldermen.  His  close-cropped  head  glistened  in  the  sun- 
shine that  entered  through  the  window  at  his  elbow,  and 
his  little  ferret-like  eyes  alternately  sought  to  bore  their 
way  into  my  mental  processes  and  to  light  up  with  a  win- 
some naivete  which  he  did  not  really  possess.  Most  of 
the  words  I  set  down  here  are  his,  though  some  of  them 
were  now  and  then  thrown  in  by  his  subservient  but  approv- 
ing companions. 

233 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

"With  us  Germans,"  he  began,  "it  has  become  a  case  of 
'Vogel  friss  oder  starb' — eat  crow  or  die.  We  are  forced, 
for  the  time  at  least,  to  accept  what  the  Poles  see  fit  to 
allow  us.  The  German  residents  of  Posen  are  not  exactly 
oppressed,  but  our  lives  are  hemmed  in  by  a  thousand  petty 
annoyances,  some  of  them  highly  discouraging.  Take, 
for  instance,  this  matter  of  the  street  names.  Granted  that 
the  Poles  had  the  right  to  put  them  up  in  their  own  language. 
It  was  certainly  a  sign  of  fanaticism  to  tear  down  the  Ger- 
man names.  More  than  a  fourth  of  the  residents  of  Posen 
cannot  read  the  new  street  placards.  There  is  not  a  Polish 
map  of  the  city  in  existence.  When  the  province  of  Posen 
came  back  to  us  the  Polish  street  names  were  allowed  to 
remain  until  1879 — for  more  than  a  hundred  years.  It 
is  a  sign  of  childishness,  of  retarded  mentality,  to  daub 
with  red  paint  all  the  German  signs  they  cannot  remove! 
It  isn't  much  more  than  that  to  have  forbidden  the  use 
of  our  tongue  in  governmental  affairs.  We  Germans  used 
both  languages  officially  clear  up  to  1876.  We  even  had 
the  old  Prussian  laws  translated  into  Polish.  It  is  only 
during  the  last  ten  years  that  nothing  but  German  was 
permitted  in  the  public  schools;  and  there  have  always 
been  plenty  of  Polish  private  schools.  I  am  still  technically 
a  member  of  the  Municipal  Council,  but  I  cannot  understand 
a  Word  of  the  proceedings,  because  they  are  in  Polish. 
Our  lawyers  cannot  practise  unless  they  use  that  language, 
although  the  judges,  who  pretend  not  to  know  German, 
speak  it  as  readily  as  you  or  I.  Yet  these  same  lawyers 
cannot  get  back  into  Germany.  At  least  give  us  time  to 
learn  Polish  before  abolishing  German!  Many  a  man  born 
here  cannot  speak  it.  There  are  German  children  of  eighteen 
or  twenty,  who  have  never  been  outside  the  province,  who 
are  now  learning  Polish — that  is,  to  write  and  speak  it 
correctly. 

"Oh  yes,  to  be  sure,  we  can  most  of  us  get  permission  in 

234 


AN  AMPUTATED  MEMBER 

three  or  four  weeks  to  leave  the  province,  but  only  by 
abandoning  most  of  our  possessions  and  taking  an  oath 
never  to  return.  No  wonder  so  many  Germans  become 
Poles  overnight.  You  can  hardly  expect  otherwise,  when 
they  have  lived  here  all  their  lives  and  have  all  their  prop- 
erty and  friends  and  interests  here.  No,  military  service 
is  not  required  of  Germans,  even  if  they  were  born  here; 
but  many  of  our  youths  have  voluntarily  become  Polish 
soldiers,  for  the  same  reason  that  their  parents  have  sud- 
denly turned  Poles.  Naturally,  there  is  righting  along  the 
boundary  of  the  province.  The  Poles  want  to  fight,  so 
they  can  have  an  excuse  to  keep  their  men  under  arms, 
and  what  can  Germany  do  but  protect  herself?  Poland  is 
planning  to  become  an  aggressive,  militaristic  nation,  as 
was  falsely  charged  against  the  Fatherland  by  her  enemies. 

"The  complaints  of  the  Poles  at  our  rule  were  ridiculous. 
We  paid  German  teachers  a  premium  because  they  had 
harder  work  in  teaching  German  to  Polish  children  and  in 
seeing  that  they  did  not  speak  the  language  that  was  un- 
wisely used  at  home.  Railroad  jobs,  except  common  labor, 
were  given  to  Germans  because  they  were  more  efficient 
and  trustworthy.  Besides,  does  not  Germany  own  the 
railroads?  They  complain  that  the  best  land  was  taken  by 
German  settlers;  but  the  Poles  were  only  too  glad  to  sell 
to  our  Ansiedler — at  high  prices.  Now  they  are  attacking 
us  with  a  fanaticism  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Eighteen  hundred 
German  teachers,  men  who  have  been  educating  the  Poles 
for  twenty  or  twenty-five  years,  have  suddenly  been  dis- 
charged and  ordered  to  vacate  government  property  within 
four  weeks — yet  they  are  not  allowed  to  go  back  to  Germany. 
The  Pole  is  still  part  barbarian;  he  is  more  heartless  than 
his  cousin  the  Russian. 

"Seventy  per  cent,  of  the  taxes  in  the  province  of  Posen 
are  paid  by  Germans.  Yet  no  German  who  was  not  born 
here  can  vote,  though  Poles  who  were  not  can.  I  know  a 

235 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

village  where  there  are  seventy  Germans  and  five  Poles — 
and  the  five  Poles  run  things  to  suit  themselves.  Hus- 
bands, wives,  and  sons  often  have  different  rights  of  suffrage. 
The  family  of  Baron  X  has  lived  here  for  a  hundred  and 
fifty  years.  The  baron  himself  happens  to  have  been  born 
in  Berlin,  because  his  mother  went  there  to  see  a  doctor. 
So  he  cannot  vote,  though  his  Polish  coachman,  who  has 
not  been  here  ten  years,  has  all  the  rights  of  citizenship. 
The  result  is  that  government  affairs  are  getting  into  a 
hopeless  muddle.  An  ignorant  fellow  by  the  name  of 
Korfanti  —  a  Polish  'German-eater'  —  has  now  the  chief 
voice  in  the  Municipal  Council.  The  Poles  boycott  German 
merchants.  They  deluge  the  city  with  placards  and  appeals 
not  to  buy  of  Germans.  For  a  long  time  they  refused  to 
trade  even  a  miserable  little  Polish  theater  for  our  splendid 
big  Stadttheater.  When  the  director  of  that  finally  got 
permission  to  take  over  the  wholly  inadequate  little  play- 
house for  next  season  he  had  to  advertise  in  order  to  find 
out  how  many  Germans  intend  to  stay  in  Posen — as  you 
have  seen  in  our  German  paper.  What  can  the  Poles  do 
with  our  magnificent  Stadttheater?  They  have  no  classics 
to  give  in  it,  nor  people  of  sufficient  culture  to  make  up  an 
audience.  We  are  still  allowed  to  give  German  opera, 
because  they  know  they  cannot  run  that  themselves,  and 
a  few  of  the  more  educated  Poles  like  it.  But  our  splendid 
spoken  classics  seem  to  be  doomed. 

"Then  there  is  their  ridiculous  hatred  of  the  Jews.  The 
race  may  have  its  faults,  but  the  five  or  six  thousand  Jews 
of  Posen  province  play  a  most  important  business  and 
financial  r61e.  They  have  always  understood  the  advan- 
tages of  German  Kultur  far  better  than  the  Poles.  There  is 
a  Jewish  Volksrat  here  that  tries  to  keep  independent  of 
both  the  other  elements  of  the  population;  but  the  great 
majority  of  the  Jews  stand  with  the  Germans.  They  have 
no  use  for  this  new  Zionism — except  for  the  other  fellow — 

236 


AN  AMPUTATED  MEMBER 

unless  you  take  seriously  the  aspirations  of  a  few  impractical 
young  idealists" — a  statement,  by  the  way,  which  I  heard 
from  Jews  of  all  classes  in  various  parts  of  Germany. 

"We  Germans  lifted  the  Poles  out  of  their  semi-savagery. 
We  brought  them  Kultur.  Do  not  be  deceived  by  what 
you  see  in  Posen.  It  is  a  magnificent  city,  is  it  not?— 
finer,  perhaps,  than  you  Americans  found  Coblenz?  Yet 
everything  that  gives  it  magnificence  was  built  by  the 
Germans — the  well-paved  streets,  the  big,  wide  boulevards, 
the  splendid  parks,  all  the  government  buildings  and  the 
best  of  the  private  ones,  the  street-cars,  the  electric  lights, 
even  the  higher  state  of  civilization  you  find  among  the 
masses.  There  is  not  a  Pole  in  the  province  of  Posen  who 
cannot  read  and  write.  Do  not  make  the  mistake  of 
thinking  all  these  things  are  Polish  because  the  Poles  have 
stolen  them.  Before  you  leave,  go  and  compare  Posen 
with  the  Polish  cities  outside  Germany.  That  will  tell  the 
story.  In  non-German  Poland  you  will  be  struck  by  the 
appalling  lack  of  schools,  roads,  doctors,  hospitals,  educa- 
tion, culture,  by  the  sad  condition  of  the  workmen  and 
the  peasants — all  those  things  that  are  included  in  the  Ger- 
man word  Kultur.  In  Galizia,  where  Austria  virtually 
allowed  the  Poles  to  run  themselves,  the  houses  are  only 
six  feet  high,  and  you  could  walk  all  day  without  finding 
a  man  who  can  read  and  write,  or  who  can  even  speak 
German.  Their  cities  are  sunk  in  a  degradation  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  Posen  will  fall  into  the  same  state,  if  the 
present  Municipal  Council  continues  in  power.  There  are 
already  frontier  troubles  between  German  and  Russian 
Poland,  and  quarrels  between  the  different  sections  that 
confirm  what  we  Germans  have  always  known — that  the 
Poles  cannot  govern  themselves.  Warsaw  does  not  wish  to 
keep  up  our  splendid  system  of  workmen  and  old-age 
insurance  because  there  is  none  in  Russian  Poland.  Galizia 
complains  that  farm  land  is  several  times  higher  in  price 

237 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

in  the  province  of  Posen,  without  admitting  that  it  is 
German  railroads  and  German  settlers  that  have  made 
it  so.  That  advantage  will  soon  disappear.  The  Poles 
will  make  a  mess  of  the  whole  province  and  will  have  it 
sunk  into  the  degradation  in  which  we  found  it  by  the 
time  a  real  ruling  nation  takes  charge  of  it  again." 

Just  how  much  truth  there  was  mixed  in  with  the  con- 
siderable amount  of  patent  nonsense  in  the  ex-chairman's 
declamation  only  a  long  stay  in  Poznan,  or  time  itself, 
would  show.  The  fact  that  the  Poles  allowed  many  of 
these  statements,  particularly  the  protests  against  the  sud- 
den change  of  language,  to  be  published  in  the  local  Ger- 
man newspaper  speaks  at  least  for  their  spirit  of  tolerance. 
Though  the  new  government  was  visibly  making  mistakes, 
and  had  not  yet  settled  down  to  the  orderliness  that  should 
come  from  experience,  no  one  but  a  prejudiced  critic  could 
have  discovered  immediate  evidence  that  it  was  making 
any  such  complete  "mess"  of  matters  as  the  German 
Volksrat  testified.  Even  if  it  had  been,  at  least  the  mass 
of  the  population  showed  itself  happy  and  contented  with 
tfie  change,  and  contentment,  after  all,  may  in  time  result 
in  more  genuine  and  lasting  progress  than  that  which  comes 
from  the  forcible  feeding  of  German  Kultur. 

I  dropped  in  at  the  Teatro  Apollo  one  evening,  chiefly 
to  find  out  how  it  feels  to  see  a  play  without  understanding 
a  word  of  it.  An  immense  barnlike  building,  that  looked 
as  if  it  had  once  been  a  skating-rink  or  a  dancing-pavilion, 
was  crowded  to  suffocation  with  Poles  of  every  class  and 
variety,  from  servant-girls  in  their  curious  leg-of-mutton 
sleeves  to  colonels  in  the  latest  cut  of  Polish  uniform.  The 
actors — if  they  could  have  been  dignified  with  that  title — 
had  recently  been  imported  from  Warsaw,  and  the  alleged 
play  they  perpetrated  could  scarcely  have  been  equaled 
by  our  silliest  rough-and-tumble  "comedians."  The  herd- 
like  roar  with  which  their  inane  sallies  were  unfailingly 

238 


AN  AMPUTATED  MEMBER 

greeted  testified  that  the  audience  found  them  entertaining. 
But  it  may  be  that  Poznan  was  in  a  particularly  simple- 
minded  mood  during  its  first  months  of  relief  from  a  century 
of  bitter  oppression.  I  hope  so,  for  I  should  regret  to  find 
that  the  startling  contrast  between  this  Polish  audience 
and  the  German  one  at  the  artistic  Stadttheater  the  following 
evening  fairly  represented  the  difference  between  the  two 
races.  I  believe  I  am  not  prejudiced  by  the  fact  that  the 
Volksrat  presented  me  with  a  free  ticket  when  I  say  that  the 
latter  performance  was  one  of  which  any  manager  might 
have  been  justly  proud.  The  audience,  too,  resembled  the 
other  about  as  a  gathering  of  college  professors  resembles  a 
collection  of  factory  hands.  There  was  a  well-bred  solemnity 
about  it  that  could  not,  in  this  case,  have  been  due  merely 
to  hunger,  for  there  was  no  munching  whatever  between 
the  acts,  none  even  under  cover  of  the  darkened  house, 
except  here  and  there  of  candy,  a  luxury  so  long  since  for- 
gotten in  Berlin  that  the  happy  possessor  would  never 
have  dreamed  of  giving  his  attention  at  the  same  time  to 
the  merely  esthetic  appeal  of  the  theater.  There  may  have 
been  Poles  in  the  house,  but  at  least  the  new  army  was 
conspicuous  by  its  absence.  Not  a  uniform  was  to  be 
seen,  with  the  exception  of  three  scattered  through  the 
"peanut  gallery."  Two  crown  boxes,  destined  only  for 
Hohenzollern  royalty  or  its  representatives,  sat  empty, 
with  something  of  the  solemn  demeanor  of  the  vacant  chair 
at  the  head  of  the  table  the  day  after  the  funeral.  Who 
would  occupy  them  when  the  Poles  had  taken  over  the 
playhouse?  What,  moreover,  would  they  do  toward  main- 
taining the  high  standards  of  the  stage  before  us?  For  the 
most  indefatigable  enemy  of  the  Germans  must  have 
admitted  that  here  was  something  that  could  ill  be  spared. 
If  only  they  had  been  contented  with  bringing  the  masses 
these  genuine  benefits,  without  militarism,  with  more  open 
competition,  without  so  much  appeal  to  the  doctrine  of 

239 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

force — but  it  has  ever  been  Germany's  contention  that  only 
by  force  can  the  mass  of  mankind  be  lifted  to  higher  levels; 
that  only  an  army  can  protect  the  self-appointed  mis- 
sionaries of  a  loftier  civilization. 

Armed  with  what  those  who  read  Polish  assured  me  was 
permission  to  do  so,  I  set  out  on  foot  one  morning  to  the 
eastward.  Beyond  the  last  group  of  guards  wearing  the 
silver  double-eagle  on  their  threadbare  German  uniforms, 
I  fell  in  with  three  barefooted  Polish  peasant  women.  They 
were  barely  thirty,  yet  all  three  were  already  well-nigh 
toothless,  and  their  hardy  forms  and  faces  were  plainly 
marked  with  the  signs  that  testify  to  grueling  labor  and  the 
constant  bearing  of  children.  The  German  they  spoke  was 
far  superior  to  the  dialects  of  many  regions  of  purely  Teu- 
tonic population.  Their  demeanor  was  cheerful,  yet  behind 
it  one  caught  frequent  glimpses  of  that  background  of 
patient,  unquestioning  acceptance  of  life  as  it  is  which 
distinguishes  the  country  people  of  Europe. 

The  most  energetic  of  the  trio  showed  a  willingness  to 
enter  into  conversation;  the  others  confined  themselves  to 
an  occasional  nod  of  approval,  as  if  the  exertion  of  keeping 
pace  with  us  left  them  no  strength  to  expend  in  mere  words. 
It  was  plain  from  the  beginning  that  they  were  not  enthusi- 
astic on  the  subject  then  uppermost  in  the  city  behind  us. 
They  greeted  my  first  reference  to  it  with  expressions 
that  might  have  been  called  indifferent,  had  they  not  been 
tinged  with  evidence  of  a  mild  resentment. 

"What  does  it  matter  to  us  people  of  the  fields,"  retorted 
the  less  taciturn  of  the  group,  "whether  Poles  or  Germans 
sit  in  the  comfort  of  government  offices,  so  long  as  they 
let  us  alone?  Things  were  all  right  as  they  were,  before 
the  war  came.  Why  trouble  us  with  all  these  changes? 
Now  they  are  breaking  our  backs  with  new  burdens,  as 
if  we  had  not  had  enough  of  them  for  five  years.  First  they 
take  our  men  and  leave  us  to  do  their  work.  I  have  not  a 

240 


AN  AMPUTATED  MEMBER 

male  relative  left,  except  my  husband,  and  he  is  so  sickly 
that  he  is  no  longer  a  man.  He  is  paid  twelve  marks  for 
eight  hours'  work;  fifteen  for  ten.  But  what  help  is  that 
when  he  cannot  work  ten  hours,  or  even  eight  ?  They  offered 
him  the  iron  cross.  He  told  them  he  would  rather  have 
something  to  feed  his  family  with  at  home.  They  asked 
him  if  he  was  not  already  getting  forty  marks  a  month  for  the 
support  of  his  family.  How  could  I  feed  four  children, 
even  after  the  other  two  had  died,  with  forty  marks  a 
month  ?  For  three  winters  I  had  nothing  but  dried  potatoes 
and  salt.  I  could  not  have  bread  for  myself  because  the 
flour  for  the  children  took  all  the  tickets.  Now  the  war  is 
over,  yet  they  are  still  taking  away  what  we  have  left. 
The  same  soldiers  come  and  drive  off  our  horses — for  the 
silver  eagle  on  their  caps  has  not  changed  their  natures. 
Pay  for  them?  Ach,  what  is  eight  hundred  marks  for  a 
horse  that  is  worth  six  thousand?  And  how  can  we  culti- 
vate our  fields  without  them?  Who  started  the  war? 
Ach,  they  are  all  arguing.  What  does  it  matter,  so  long 
as  they  stop  it?  Will  the  Germans  sign?  They  should, 
and  have  done  with  it.  If  they  don't,  all  the  men  over 
fifty,  including  the  Germans  and  even  the  Jews" — there 
was  a  sneer  in  this  last  word,  even  in  the  country — "will 
be  at  it  again.  We  have  had  enough  of  it.  Yet  if  the 
soldiers  come  and  tell  my  husband  to  go  he  must  go,  sick 
though  he  is." 

The  basket  each  of  the  trio  carried  contained  the  midday 
lunch  of  her  husband  in  the  fields.  I  turned  aside  to  the 
grassy  slope  on  which  two  of  the  couples  assembled.  The 
men  insisted  that  I  share  their  meal  with  them.  It  was 
more  nourishing  than  a  ten-mark  repast  in  a  Berlin  restau- 
rant, but  the  absence  of  bread  was  significant.  When  I 
gave  the  men  each  a  pinch  of  tobacco  crumbs  they  an- 
nounced themselves  delighted  at  the  exchange,  and  mumbled 
halting  words  about  the  well-known  generosity  of  Ameri- 

241 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

cans.  As  I  turned  my  kodak  upon  them  they  greeted  it 
with  a  laughing  "Oh,  la  la!"  There  was  no  need  to  ask 
where  they  had  picked  up  that  expression.  It  oriented 
their  war  experiences  as  definitely  as  it  will  distinguish 
for  years  to  come  the  Americans,  in  whatever  garb  one 
finds  them,  who  were  members  of  the  A.  E.  F.  in  France. 

The  men  were  less  indifferent  to  the  recent  change  of 
government  than  their  wives,  but  even  they  could  not  have 
been  called  enthusiastic.  What  struck  one  most  was  the 
wider  outlook  on  life  the  Germans  had  been  forced  to  give 
them  in  spite  of  themselves.  Had  they  been  left  to  till 
their  farms,  these  plodding  peasants  would  probably  still 
have  swallowed  whole  the  specious  propaganda  of  their 
erstwhile  rulers.  Now,  after  four  years  of  military  service 
that  had  carried  them  through  all  central  Europe,  they  had 
developed  the  habit  of  forming  their  own  opinions  on  all 
questions;  they  took  any  unverified  statement,  from  what- 
ever source,  with  more  than  a  grain  of  salt.  It  would  be  a 
mistake  nowadays  to  think  of  the  European  peasant  as  the 
prejudiced  conservative,  the  plaything  of  deliberate  mis- 
information, which  he  was  five  years  ago.  In  the  light  of 
his  new  experiences  he  is  in  many  cases  doing  more  individ- 
ual thinking  than  the  average  city  resident. 

Yet,  I  must  admit,  the  conclusions  of  this  well-traveled 
pair  did  not  boil  down  into  anything  very  different  from  the 
consensus  of  opinion,  even  though  they  reached  them  by 
their  own  peculiar  trains  of  thought.  Germany,  they  were 
convinced,  had  the  full  guilt  of  the  war;  not  the  Kaiser 
particularly — they  call  him  "Wilhelm"  in  Posen  province 
now,  and  even  there  one  detects  now  and  again  a  tendency 
toward  the  old  idolatry  he  seems  personally  to  have  enjoyed 
throughout  the  whole  Empire — but  the  military  crowd, 
"and  the  capitalists."  They  disclaimed  any  hatred  of  the 
Germans,  "until  they  wanted  to  iule  the  earth"  and  sought 
to  make  the  peasants  the  instruments  of  their  ambition, 

242 


AN  AMPUTATED  MEMBER 

They,  too,  charged  Wilson  personally  with  delaying  the 
conclusion  of  peace — on  the  fate  of  Danzig  they  seemed  to 
be  supremely  indifferent. 

"It's  all  politics,  anyway,"  concluded  one  of  them. 
"They  are  all  playing  politics.  If  the  Germans  don't  sign 
they  will  be  divided  up  as  Poland  was  a  hundred  and  forty 
years  ago.  But  this  new  government  in  Posen  is  no  better 
than  the  old.  What  we  need  is  something  entirely  new 
— a  government  of  the  peasants  and  of  the  working-classes." 

The  women  had  from  the  beginning  tried  to  lead  their 
husbands  away  from  "arguing  politics,"  chiefly  with  ludi- 
crously heavy  attempts  at  coquetry,  and  at  length  they 
succeeded.  I  regained  the  highway.  On  either  hand  lay 
slightly  rolling  fields  of  fertile  black  soil,  well  cultivated 
as  far  as  the  eye  could  see,  with  only  a  scattering  of  trees. 
Miles  away  an  abandoned  Zeppelin  hangar  bulked  into  the 
sky.  There  were  more  women  laborers  than  men;  several 
gangs  of  them  were  working  with  picks  and  shovels ;  another 
group  was  slowly  but  patiently  loading  bricks.  Horses 
were  to  be  seen  here  and  there,  but  oxen  were  in  the  ma- 
jority. Farm-houses  showed  a  rough  comfort  and  a  toler- 
able cleanliness,  villages  a  passable  neatness  that  may  or 
may  not  have  been  due  to  German  influence.  Certainly 
the  architecture,  the  farming  methods,  the  communal 
customs,  were  little  different  from  those  of  Prussia  or  the 
Rhineland. 

The  dinner  served  me  in  the  chief  tavern  of  a  village  of 
some  two  thousand  inhabitants  was  nothing  to  complain  of, 
either  in  variety  or  price.  A  general-shop  keeper  stated 
that  "with  the  exception  of  a  few  semi-luxuries,  such  as 
cocoa  and  toilet  soap,"  his  grocery  department  could  still 
meet  the  decreased  demands  made  upon  it.  In  the  clothing 
lines  everything  was  scarce  or  wholly  lacking.  Worst  of 
all,  there  was  nothing  fit  to  drink  or  smoke.  The  strong 
spirits  that  had  once  been  his  chief  trade  had  become  so 

17  243 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

weak  no  one  but  boys  would  drink  them.  If  only  America 
would  send  concentrated  alcohol  they  could  doctor  the  stock 
of  liquor  they  had  on  hand  so  that  no  one  would  know  the 
difference.  Then  if  they  could  only  get  some  American 
tobacco!  Life  was  not  what  it  used  to  be,  without  a  real 
cigarette  from  one  month's  end  to  the  other.  The  German 
rule,  on  the  whole,  had  not  been  so  bad  as  many  of  the 
Allies  seemed  to  believe.  They  got  along,  though  it  was 
rather  pleasant  to  be  relieved  of  the  arrogant  fellows,  or 
see  them  crawl  into  their  shells.  No  German  resident  in 
the  village  had  given  any  sign  of  intending  to  move  away. 
The  communal  school  was  still  teaching  the  German  lan- 
guage— two  or  three  hours  a  week  now.  No  one  had 
noticed  any  other  change  of  any  importance.  The  French 
prisoners  confined  in  the  province  during  the  war  had  been 
brutally  treated.  There  was  no  doubt  about  that;  he  had 
seen  it  himself.  But  on  the  whole  the  German  authorities 
had  not  been  much  harder  on  the  Polish  population  than 
upon  their  own  people,  in  Prussia  and  elsewhere.  It  was 
all  part  of  the  war,  and  every  one  in  the  Empire  had  to  bear 
his  share  of  the  burdens.  Happily,  it  was  over  now,  if  only 
the  new  Polish  government  did  not  grow  ambitious  for 
military  conquests  also,  with  the  millions  of  soldiers,  some 
of  them  patriotic  to  the  point  of  self-sacrifice,  under  its 
command. 

My  hope  of  walking  out  of  Posen  province  suffered  the 
same  fate  as  my  plan  of  tramping  into  it  from  Germany. 
In  the  end  I  was  forced  to  return  to  Poznan  and  make  my 
exit  by  train  over  the  same  route  by  which  I  had  entered. 
In  the  third-class  compartment  I  occupied  there  were  five 
German  residents  who  had  renounced  forever  their  right 
to  return,  for  the  privilege  of  leaving  now  with  the  more 
portable  of  their  possessions.  Two  of  them  had  been  born 
in  the  amputated  province ;  the  others  had  lived  there  most 
of  their  lives.  All  spoke  Polish  as  readily  as  German. 

244 


AN  AMPUTATED  MEMBER 

One  masterly,  yet  scholarly  youth,  who  had  served  through 
the  war  as  a  lieutenant,  was  a  school-teacher  by  profession, 
as  was  the  uncle  who  accompanied  him.  They  had  taught 
six  and  twenty-six  years,  respectively,  but  had  been  dis- 
possessed of  their  positions  and  of  their  government  dwell- 
ings by  the  new  rulers.  Up  to  the  time  we  reached  the 
frontier  all  five  of  my  companions  laid  careful  emphasis 
on  the  statement  that  they  were  going  to  seek  re-estab- 
lishment in  their  civilian  professions  in  what  was  left  of  the 
Fatherland. 

At  Wronki  the  Polish  authorities  were  far  more  inquisi- 
tive than  they  had  been  toward  travelers  from  the  other 
direction.  One  by  one  each  compartment  group  was 
herded  together,  bag  and  baggage,  and  strained  through 
the  sieve  of  a  careful  search-and-questioning  bureau.  The 
soldier  who  examined  my  knapsack  glared  at  the  half-dozen 
precious  American  cigars  I  had  left  as  if  nothing  but  the 
presence  of  his  superiors  could  have  prevented  him  from 
confiscating  them.  Only  sufficient  food  for  the  day's 
journey  was  allowed  to  pass.  In  some  cases  this  rule  was 
interpreted  rather  liberally,  but  no  one  got  through  with 
more  than  ten  or  twelve  pounds  to  the  person.  The  amount 
that  was  confiscated  easily  sufficed  to  feed  the  garrison  of 
Wronki  for  the  twenty-four  hours  before  the  next  west- 
bound train  was  due.  An  old  woman,  riding  fourth  class, 
who  resembled  one  of  India's  famine  victims,  was  despoiled 
of  almost  the  entire  contents  of  her  trunk-sized  chest — 
several  sacks  of  flour,  a  dozen  huge  loaves  of  bread,  and  a 
generous  supply  of  sausage.  The  fact  that  she  spoke  only 
Polish  did  not  seem  to  impress  the  searchers  in  her  favor, 
who  silenced  her  wails  at  last  by  bundling  her  bodily  back 
into  the  coach  and  tossing  her  empty  coffer  after  her. 

When  at  last  we  were  under  way  again  the  Germans  in 
my  compartment  took  to  comparing  notes.  One,  a  doctor, 
was  bewailing  the  "plain  theft"  of  a  surgical  appliance  of 

245 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

rubber  which  the  Poles  had  confiscated  in  spite  of  what 
seemed  to  be  complete  proof  that  it  was  his  private  property 
and  not  part  of  the  German  army  supplies.  A  foxy-faced 
country  youth,  who  had  carefully  changed  from  shoes  to 
high  boots  just  before  the  arrival  at  Wronki,  changed  back 
again  now  with  the  announcement  that  there  were  some 
four  thousand  marks  concealed  between  the  boot  soles. 
The  younger  schoolmaster  threw  off  the  disguise  with 
which  he  had  covered  his  real  thoughts  and  announced, 
vociferously : 

"You  drive  me  out  to  work  for  my  livelihood!  I  will 
work  for  my  Fatherland  at  the  same  time.  I  will  go  to 
Bromberg  this  very  evening  and  join  the  army  again. 
We  shall  see  whether  the  Poles  can  keep  Posen." 

The  two  other  young  men  asserted  that  they,  too,  had 
left  with  exactly  that  intention.  An  indignation  meeting 
against  the  Poles  raged  for  an  hour  or  more. 

"I  could  have  remained  and  kept  my  position,"  went  on 
the  schoolmaster,  "if  I  had  wanted  to  turn  Polack.  Both 
my  parents  were  Polish;  I  spoke  it  before  I  did  German; 
but  I  shall  always  remain  a  true  son  of  the  Fatherland, 
no  matter  what  happens  to  it." 

A  few  hundred  yards  from  Kreuz  station  our  train  halted 
for  more  than  an  hour  and  gave  us  the  pleasure  of  watching 
the  Berlin  express  go  on  without  us.  Though  it  would  have 
been  a  matter  of  twenty  seconds  to  have  sprinted  across  the 
delta  between  the  two  lines,  armed  boy  soldiers  prevented 
any  one  from  leaving  his  compartment.  To  all  appearances 
it  was  a  case  of  "pure  meanness"  on  the  part  of  the  German 
authorities.  Our  wrath  at  being  forced  to  wait  a  half-day 
for  a  dawdling  local  train  was  soon  appeased,  however, 
by  the  announcement  that  we  were  the  last  travelers  who 
would  be  allowed  to  enter  Germany  from  the  province  of 
Posen  "until  the  war  was  over."  The  frontier  had  been 
closed  by  orders  from  Berlin.  It  is  a  long  way  round  from 

246 


AN  AMPUTATED  MEMBER 

Poland  to  Holland,  and  amid  the  turmoil  of  gloomy  men, 
disheveled  women,  and  squalling  children  who  had  been 
turned  back  with  their  goal  so  near  I  found  cause  to  be 
personally  thankful,  particularly  as  I  succeeded  in  eluding 
during  all  the  afternoon  the  glassy  eye  of  the  cantankerous 
dyspeptic,  who  buffeted  his  way  now  and  then  through 
the  throng. 

Some  things  are  still  cheap  in  Germany.  A  twelve-word 
telegram  from  Kreuz  to  Berlin  cost  me  nine  cents — and  it 
was  delivered  in  telegraphic  haste.  The  hungry  passengers 
from  farther  east  with  whom  I  shared  a  compartment  that 
evening  eyed  me  greedily  as  I  supped  on  the  supplies  I 
had  brought  from  Posen.  One  man  wearing  several  dia- 
monds leaned  toward  me  as  I  was  cutting  my  coffee-brown 
loaf  and  sighed,  reminiscently,  "What  beautiful  white 
bread!"  When  I  offered  to  share  it  with  him,  however, 
he  refused  vigorously,  as  if  his  pride  would  not  permit  him 
to  accept  what  his  appetite  was  so  loudly  demanding. 
Unable  to  find  a  place  in  the  section  to  which  my  third- 
class  ticket  entitled  me,  I  was  riding  second-class.  The 
train-guard  on  his  rounds  confiscated  my  ticket  and  ignored 
my  offer  to  pay  the  difference,  with  a  stern,  "  It  is  unlawful 
to  ride  in  a  higher  class."  On  the  Friedrichstrasse  platform, 
however,  instead  of  conducting  me  to  his  superiors,  he 
sidled  up  to  me  in  the  darkness  and  murmured,  "If  you 
have  a  five-mark  note  with  you  it  will  be  all  right."  Ger- 
many is  changing  indeed  if  her  very  railway  employees 
are  taking  on  these  Latin  characteristics. 


XII 

ON  THE   ROAD   IN   BAVARIA 

AS[  excellent  express  raced  all  day  southward  across  a 
Germany  lush-green  with  May.  Cattle  were  scarcer 
in  the  fields,  horses  so  rare  a  sight  as  to  be  almost  conspicu- 
ous, but  the  fields  themselves  seemed  as  intensively,  as 
thoroughly  cultivated  as  my  memory  pictured  them  fifteen 
and  ten  years  before.  Within  the  train  there  was  no 
crowding;  the  wide  aisles  and  corridors  were  free  from 
soldiers  and  their  packs,  for  though  there  were  a  hundred 
or  more  in  uniform  scattered  between  the  engine  and  the 
last  car,  a  furlong  behind,  seats  were  still  to  be  had.  The 
question  naturally  arose,  Are  the  Germans  so  short  of 
rolling-stock,  after  complying  with  the  terms  of  the  armistice, 
as  they  pretend?  A  traveler  racing  across  the  Empire 
in  this  roomy,  almost  luxurious  Schnellzug  might  easily  have 
concluded  that  their  whining  on  that  score  was  mere  camou- 
flage. There  were  even  curtains  at  the  wide  windows, 
though  of  rather  shoddy  stuff,  and  the  window-straps  of 
paper  were  so  nicely  disguised  as  to  be  almost  indistin- 
guishable from  real  leather.  He  who  took  pains,  however, 
to  dip  a  bit  more  deeply  into  the  question  found  that  even 
this  great  trunk  line  was  carrying  barely  a  third  of  its  peace- 
time traffic.  The  red  figures,  indicating  expresses,  on  the 
huge  porcelain  time-tables  decorating  station  walls  were 
nearly  all  pasted  over  with  slips  of  paper,  while  the  black 
ones  of  Personenzuge,  the  stop-everywhere-a-long-time  trains, 

248 


ON  THE  ROAD  IN  BAVARIA 

were  more  than  half  canceled.  The  branch  lines  had  con- 
tributed even  more  to  the  Allies.  Nor  did  our  aristocratic 
Berlin-Munchen  express  entirely  escape  overburdening. 
At  Nurnberg  came  with  sunset  such  hordes  of  passengers 
of  all  grades  that  every  available  foot  of  the  train  was  as 
densely  packed  as  a  fourth-class  coach  on  market-day. 
The  throng  it  disgorged  at  Munich  was  sufficient  to  have 
peopled  a  town  of  very  respectable  size. 

I  had  made  the  sudden  leap  to  the  southern  end  of  the 
Empire  as  a  starting-point  of  a  tramp  across  it  instead  of 
reversing  the  process  in  the  hope  that  here  at  last  I  should 
find  "something  doing,"  some  remnants  of  excitement. 
Munich  had  just  been  snatched  from  the  hands  of  the 
Sparticists — or  the  Bolshevists;  the  distinction  between 
the  two  dreaded  groups  is  not  very  clear  in  the  German 
mind.  Levin6,  the  half-mad  Russian  Jew  who  was  reputed 
the  organizing  spirit  of  the  revolt,  was  still  dodging  from 
one  hiding-place  to  another  somewhere  in  the  vicinity.  To 
read  the  breathless  cables  to  the  foreign  press  was  to  fancy 
Munich  under  a  constant  hail  of  shrapnel  and  machine-gun 
bullets.  Ours  was  the  second  passenger-train  that  had 
ventured  into  the  city  in  weeks.  All  Bavaria  was  blazing 
with  huge  posters,  often  blood-red  in  color,  headed  by  the 
dread  word  "STANDRECHT"  in  letters  to  be  seen  a  hundred 
yards  away,  proclaiming  martial  law  and  threatening 
sudden  and  dire  fate  to  any  one  who  strayed  from  the 
straight  and  narrow  path  of  absolute  submission  to  the 
"government-faithful"  troops  that  were  still  pouring  in 
from  the  north.  Surely  here,  if  anywhere,  was  a  chance 
for  a  wandering  American  to  get  into  trouble. 

Like  so  many  dreadful  things,  however,  martial  law  and 
beleaguered  cities  prove  more  terrible  at  a  distance  than  on 
the  spot.  True,  a  group  of  soldiers  in  full  fighting  equip- 
ment held  the  station  exit ;  but  their  only  act  of  belligerency 
toward  the  invading  throng  was  to  hand  each  of  us  a  red 

249 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

slip  granting  permission  to  walk  the  streets  until  two  in  the 
morning.  A  bedraggled  hotel  directly  across  the  way 
spared  me  that  necessity.  The  information  its  registry-pad 
required  of  guests  was  more  exacting  than  its  interior 
aspect,  but  neither  here  nor  at  the  station  exit  was  there 
any  demand  for  proof  of  identity. 

Toward  midnight,  as  I  was  falling  asleep,  a  score  of 
erratically  spaced  shots  and  the  brief  rat-a-tat  of  a  machine- 
gun  sounded  somewhere  not  far  away.  Their  direction 
was  too  uncertain,  however,  to  make  it  worth  while  to 
accept  the  permission  granted  by  the  red  slip.  In  the 
morning  the  city  was  thronged  with  the  business-bent 
quite  as  if  disorders  had  never  dodged  in  and  out  of  its  wide 
streets.  The  main  hotels,  however,  had  been  partly  taken 
over  by  the  staffs  of  the  newly  arrived  troops,  and  pulsated 
with  field  gray.  At  the  doors  very  young  men  in  iron 
hats  leaned  their  fixed  bayonets  in  the  crook  of  an  elbow 
while  they  examined  the  Ausweis  with  which  each  civilian 
was  supposed  to  prove  his  identity.  I  entered  several  of 
them  in  the  vain  hope  that  the  flash  of  my  American  pass- 
port would  "start  something."  The  youths  in  uniform 
handed  it  back  each  time  without  so  much  as  a  flicker  of 
curiosity  on  their  rather  dull  faces.  Inside,  another  boy 
volunteer  ran  his  hands  hastily  over  me  in  quest  of  concealed 
weapons;  but  not  even  the  most  obviously  harmless  Ba- 
varian escaped  that  attention. 

The  staff  evidently  had  no  secrets  from  the  world  at 
large.  At  any  rate,  I  wandered  into  a  dozen  hotel  rooms 
that  had  been  turned  into  offices  and  idled  about  undis- 
turbed while  majors  gave  captains  their  orders  for  the  day 
and  lieutenants  explained  to  sergeants  the  latest  commands 
from  higher  up.  What  had  become  of  that  stern  discipline 
and  the  far-famed  secrecy  of  the  German  army?  The 
soldiers  of  democratic  America  were  automatons  in  the 
presence  of  their  officers  compared  with  these  free-and- 

250 


ON  THE  ROAD  IN  BAVARIA 

easy  youths  in  gray ;  over  in  Posen  the  Poles  were  many- 
fold  more  exacting.  Had  I  been  a  spy,  there  were  several 
opportunities  to  have  pocketed  papers  strewn  about  tables 
and  improvised  desks.  When  at  last  an  officer  looked  up 
at  me  inquiringly  I  explained  my  presence  by  asking  for 
written  permission  to  take  photographs  within  the  be- 
leaguered city,  and  it  was  granted  at  once  without  question. 

Berlin  had  been  sinister  of  aspect;  Munich  was  bland, 
a  softer,  gentler,  less  verboten  land.  Its  citizens  were  not 
merely  courteous;  they  were  aggressively  good-natured, 
their  cheerfulness  bubbled  over  on  all  who  came  in  contact 
with  them.  It  was  almost  as  easy  to  distinguish  a  native 
from  the  stiff  Prussians  who  had  descended  upon  them  as 
if  the  two  groups  had  worn  distinctive  uniforms.  Yet 
Munich  had  by  no  means  escaped  war-time  privations. 
Long  lines  of  hollow-eyed  women  flowed  sluggishly  in  and 
out  of  under-stocked  food-shops;  still  longer  ones,  chiefly 
though  not  entirely  male,  crept  forward  to  the  door  of 
the  rare  tobacconists  prepared  to  receive  them,  and  emerged 
clutching  two  half-length  cigarettes  each,  their  faces  beam- 
ing as  if  they  had  suddenly  come  into  an  unexpected  inheri- 
tance. They  were  good-natured  in  spite  of  what  must  have 
been  the  saddest  cut  of  all  from  the  Bavarian  point  of  view — 
the  weakness  and  high  cost  of  their  beloved  beer.  In  those 
vast  underground  Bierhallen  for  which  Munich  had  been 
far-famed  for  centuries,  where  customers  of  both  sexes 
and  any  age  that  can  toddle  pick  out  a  stone  mug  and 
serve  themselves,  the  price  per  liter  had  risen  to  the  breath- 
less height  of  thirty-four  pfennigs.  As  if  this  calamity 
were  not  of  itself  enough  to  disrupt  the  serenity  of  the 
Bavarian  temperament,  the  foaming  beverage  had  sunk  to 
a  mere  shadow  of  its  former  robust  strength. 

In  the  "cellar"  of  the  beautiful  Rathaus  a  buxom  barmaid 
reminded  me  that  Tuesday  and  Friday  were  meatless  days 
in  Germany.  The  fish  she  served  instead  brought  me  the 

251 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

added  information  that  Munich  is  far  from  the  sea.  My 
fellow-sufferers  constituted  a  truly  democratic  gathering. 
The  still  almost  portly  mayor  chuckled  with  his  cronies 
at  a  table  barely  visible  through  the  smoke-screened  forest 
of  massive  pillars.  Collarless  laborers  clinked  their  mugs, 
quite  unawed  by  the  presence  of  city  councilors  or  "big 
merchants."  A  leather-skinned  old  peasant  sat  down 
opposite  me  and  opened  conversation  at  once,  with  no 
suggestion  of  that  aloofness  of  the  north.  From  the  rucksack 
that  had  slipped  from  his  shoulders  he  took  a  half -loaf  of 
dull-brown  peasant  bread  and  a  square  of  boiled  smoked 
pork,  ordering  nothing  but  a  half -bottle  of  wine.  Beer, 
he  explained,  had  fallen  too  low  in  its  estate  to  be  worthy 
of  his  patronage,  at  least  city  beer.  In  his  village,  three 
hours  away,  he  could  still  endure  it.  Ach,  how  the  famous 
beer  of  Munich  had  deteriorated!  How  far  away  those 
happy  days  seemed!  And  to  think  of  paying  three  marks 
for  a  half -bottle  of  wine!  Why,  in  the  good  old  days  .  .  . 
And  this  dinner  of  mine — a  plate  of  fish  bones,  some  stewed 
grass,  city  bread,  and  city  beer — worthless  stuff — potatoes, 
to  be  sure,  but  not  enough  to  keep  a  man's  legs  under  him 
for  half  the  afternoon — and  a  bill  of  more  than  eight  marks' 
I  restrained  my  impulse  to  tell  him  of  that  prize  dinner  in 
Berlin. 

He  had  not  always  been  a  peasant.  Twenty  years  before 
he  had  started  a  factory — roof  tiles  and  bricks.  But  in 
1915  he  had  gone  back  to  the  farm.  At  least  a  Bauer  got 
something  to  eat.  The  peace  terms?  What  else  could 
Germany  do  but  sign?  If  the  shoe  had  been  on  the  other 
foot  the  war  lords  in  Berlin  would  have  demanded  as  much 
or  more.  If  they  hadn't  wanted  war  in  the  first  place! 
Wilhelm  and  all  his  crowd  should  have  quit  two  or  three 
years  ago  while  the  quitting  was  good.  What  did  it  all 
matter,  anyway,  so  long  as  order  returned  and  the  peasants 
could  work  without  being  pestered  with  all  this  military 

252 


ON  THE  ROAD  IN  BAVARIA 

service,  and  the  taxes,  not  to  mention  the  "hamsterers,"  the 
pests!  American,  was  I?  He  had  noticed  I  was  not  a 
Bavarian.  (So  had  I,  straining  my  ears  to  catch  the  mean- 
ing of  his  atrocious  dialect.)  He  had  taken  me  for  a 
man  from  the  north,  a  Hamburger  perhaps.  American? 
They  say  that  is  a  rich  country.  He  had  read  somewhere 
that  even  the  peasants  sometimes  had  automobiles!  How 
about  the  beer?  Deteriorating  there,  too,  eh?  Ach,  this 
war!  Going  to  abolish  beer!  What  an  insane  idea !  What 
will  people  live  on?  They  can't  afford  wine,  and  Schnapps 
is  not  good  for  a  man  in  the  long  run,  and  too  strong  for  the 
women  and  children.  Well,  he  must  be  getting  back  to 
his  beet-field.  Glad  to  have  met  an  American.  He  had 
often  heard  of  them.  Good  day  and  a  happy  journey. 

Troops  were  still  pouring  into  Munich.  That  afternoon 
what  before  the  war  would  have  looked  to  Americans  like 
a  large  army  marched  in  column  of  fours  along  the  bank  of 
the  swift,  pale-blue  Isar  and  swung  in  through  the  heart 
of  town.  There  were  infantry,  machine-gun,  and  light- 
artillery  sections,  both  horse-  and  motor-drawn,  and  from 
end  to  end  they  were  decorated  with  flowers,  which  clung 
even  to  the  horses'  bridles  and  peered  from  the  mouths 
of  the  cannon.  All  the  aspect  of  a  conquering  army  was 
there,  an  army  that  had  retaken  one  of  its  own  cities  after 
decades  of  occupation  by  the  enemy.  Greetings  showered 
upon  the  columns,  a  trifle  stiff  and  irresponsive  with  pride, 
after  the  manner  of  popular  heroes;  but  it  was  chiefly  voice- 
less greetings,  the  waving  of  hands  and  handkerchiefs,  in 
striking  contrast  to  similar  scenes  among  the  French. 

The  Boy  Scouts  of  a  year  or  two  ago  filled  a  large  portion, 
possibly  a  majority,  of  the  ranks.  The  older  men  scattered 
among  them  bore  plainly  imprinted  on  their  faces  the 
information  that  they  had  remained  chiefly  for  lack  of 
ambition  or  opportunity  to  re-enter  civil  life.  Their 
bronzed  features  were  like  frames  for  those  of  the  eager, 

253 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

life-tasting  youths  they  surrounded,  not  so  much  in  color 
as  in  their  disillusioned,  nothing-new- to-us  expressions. 
All  wore  on  their  collars  the  gold  or  silver  oak-leaves  of 
volunteers  for  "home  and  border  protection";  an  insignia 
belonging  to  generals  only  before  the  flight  of  the  Kaiser. 
Rumor  had  it,  however,  that  there  were  many  still  held 
under  the  old  conscription  laws,  particularly  those  of  Polish 
blood.  The  same  inarticulate  voices  whispered  that,  despite 
the  opinion  of  Allied  staffs,  Germany  still  had  a  million 
men  under  arms;  on  the  books  they  were  carried  as  dis- 
charged; in  reality  they  were  sustained  by  the  government 
as  "out-of-works"  and  housed  in  barracks  near  enough  to 
arsenals  or  munition  dumps  to  equip  themselves  in  a  twink- 
ling. What  percentage  of  truth  the  assertion  possessed 
could  only  have  been  determined  by  long  and  deliberate 
study,  for  though  Munich,  like  many  another  city  and 
even  the  country  districts,  seemed  to  swarm  with  soldiers, 
many  of  them  were  so  only  in  outward  appearance.  Dis- 
charged men  were  permitted  to  use  their  uniforms  until 
they  were  worn  out;  the  mere  removal  of  the  shoulder- 
straps  made  one  a  civilian — unlike  the  soldiers  resident 
in  the  occupied  region,  where  civilian  garb  of  field  gray 
was  furnished  with  the  discharged  papers — and  boys  of  all 
ages,  in  many  cases  large  enough  to  have  the  appearance 
of  real  soldiers,  were  as  apt  to  wear  the  uniform  and  the 
red-banded  cap  without  visor  as  anything  else. 

The  Sparticist  uprising  in  Munich,  now  crushed,  evidently 
made  less  trouble  on  the  spot,  as  usual,  than  in  foreign 
newspapers.  All  classes  of  the  population — except  perhaps 
that  to  which  the  turn  of  events  had  brought  the  wisdom 
of  silence — admitted  that  it  had  been  a  nuisance,  but  it  had 
left  none  of  them  ashen  with  fear  or  gaunt  with  suffering. 
Indeed,  business  seemed  to  have  gone  on  as  usual  during 
all  but  the  two  or  three  days  of  retaking  the  city.  Banks 
and  the  larger  merchants  had  been  more  or  less  heavily 

254 


ON  THE  ROAD  IN  BAVARIA 

levied  upon;  lawyers  and  a  few  other  classes  whom  the 
new  doctrine  ranked  as  "parasitic"  had  found  it  wise  to 
leave  their  offices  closed;  but  in  the  main  all  agreed  that 
the  population  at  large  was  never  troubled  in  their  homes 
and  seldom  on  the  street.  The  mistreatment  of  women, 
with  rumors  of  which  foreign  newspapers  reeked,  was 
asserted  to  have  been  rare,  and  their  "nationalization," 
which  the  cables  seem  to  have  announced,  had  not,  so  far, 
at  least,  been  contemplated.  All  in  all,  the  Bavarian  capital 
suffered  far  less  than  Winnipeg  under  a  similar  uprising  of 
like  date. 

The  moving  spirit  had  come  from  Russia,  as  already 
mentioned,  with  a  few  local  theorists  or  self-seekers  of 
higher  social  standing  as  its  chief  auxiliaries.  The  rank 
and  file  of  the  movement  were  escaped  Russian  prisoners 
and  Munich's  own  out-of-works,  together  with  such  dis- 
orderly elements  as  always  hover  about  any  upheaval 
promising  loot  or  unearned  gain.  But  the  city's  chief  scare 
seemed  to  have  been  its  recapture  by  government  troops 
under  orders  from  Berlin.  Then  for  some  fifty  hours  the 
center  of  town  was  no  proper  place  for  those  to  dally  who 
had  neglected  their  insurance  premiums.  A  hundred  more 
or  less  of  fashionable  shop-fronts  bore  witness  to  the  ease 
with  which  a  machine-gunner  can  make  a  plate-glass  look 
like  a  transparent  sieve  without  once  cracking  it;  rival 
sharpshooters  had  all  but  rounded  off  the  corners  of  a  few 
of  the  principal  buildings.  The  meek,  plaster-faced  Prot- 
estant church  had  been  the  worst  sufferer,  as  so  often 
happens  to  the  innocent  bystander.  The  most  fire-eating 
Munchener  admitted  that  barter  and  business  had  lagged 
in  the  heart  of  town  during  that  brief  period. 

But  Munich's  red  days  had  already  faded  to  a  memory. 
Even  the  assassination  of  hostages,  among  them  some  of 
the  city's  most  pompous  citizens,  by  the  fleeing  Sparticists 
was  now  mentioned  in  much  the  same  impersonal  tone 

3SS 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

with  which  the  Swiss  might  refer  to  the  death  of  William 
Tell  or  an  Englishman  regret  the  loss  of  Kitchener.  The 
blue-and-white  flag  of  Bavaria  fluttered  again  from  the 
staffs  that  had  been  briefly  usurped  by  the  red  banner  of 
revolt;  the  dark-blue  uniform  of  the  once  half-autonomous 
kingdom  again  asserted  its  sway  over  local  matters  in  the 
new  Volksreich  Bayern.  At  the  Deutsches  Theater  a  large 
audience  placidly  sipping  its  beer  set  on  little  shelves  before 
each  seat  alternately  roared  and  sniffled  at  the  bare-kneed 
mountaineers  in  feathered  hats  and  the  buxom  Models  who 
bounced  through  a  home-made  but  well-done  "custom 
picture"  in  the  local  dialect.  It  was  evident  that  life  in 
Munich  was  not  likely  to  afford  any  more  excitement  than 
had  the  apathetic  north.  The  atmosphere  of  the  place 
only  helped  to  confirm  the  ever-hardening  conviction  that 
the  German,  north  or  south,  east  or  west,  had  little  real 
sympathy  for  revolutions  compared  with  the  privilege  of 
pursuing  his  calling  steadily  and  undisturbed.  It  was 
high  time  to  take  to  the  road  while  a  faint  hope  still  remained 
that  something  might  lay  in  wait  for  me  along  the  way  to 
put  a  bit  of  ginger  into  a  journey  that  had  thus  far  lamen- 
tably failed  to  fulfil  its  promise. 

I  breakfasted  next  morning  with  the  German  staff. 
At  least  I  was  the  only  civilian  in  the  palm-decked  dining- 
room  where  a  score  of  high  ranking  wearers  of  the  iron  cross 
munched  their  black  bread  and  purple  Ersatz  marmalade 
with  punctilious  formality.  Away  from  their  men,  they 
seemed  to  cling  as  tenaciously  to  the  rules  of  their  caste 
as  if  disaster  had  never  descended  upon  it.  Each  officer 
who  entered  the  room  paused  to  click  his  heels  twice  resound- 
ingly and  bow  low  to  his  seated  fellows,  none  of  whom  gave 
him  the  slightest  attention.  It  was  as  truly  German  a 
gesture  as  the  salute  with  which  every  wearer  of  the  horizon 
blue  enters  a  public  eating-place  is  French. 

Nine  o'clock  had  already  sounded  when  I  swung  over  my 

256 


ON  THE  ROAD  IN  BAVARIA 

back  the  rucksack  containing  my  German  possessions 
and  struck  out  toward  the  north.  Now,  if  ever,  was  the 
time  for  the  iron  hand  of  the  enemy  to  fall  upon  me.  Per- 
haps my  mere  attempt  to  leave  the  city  on  foot  would 
bring  me  an  adventure.  Vain  hope!  Neither  civilians  nor 
the  endless  procession  of  soldiers  gave  me  any  more  atten- 
tion than  they  did  the  peasants  returning  to  their  rich 
acres.  Two  sadly  uneventful  hours  out  of  town  a  new  prom- 
ise appeared  in  the  offing.  A  soldier  under  a  trench  helmet, 
armed  with  a  glistening  fixed  bayonet,  was  patrolling  a 
crossroad.  He  stepped  forward  as  he  caught  sight  of  me, 
grasped  his  piece  in  an  alert  attitude,  stared  a  moment  in 
my  direction,  and — turning  his  back,  leaned  against  a  tree 
and  lighted  a  cigarette.  Evidently  I  should  have  to  fly 
the  Stars  and  Stripes  at  my  masthead  if  I  hoped  to  attract 
attention.  Not  far  beyond  stood  weather-blackened  bar- 
racks sufficient  to  have  housed  a  regiment.  I  paused  to 
photograph  a  company  that  was  falling  in.  I  marched  out 
in  front  of  the  jostling  throng  and  took  a  "close-up"  of  the 
lieutenant  who  was  dressing  it.  He  smiled  faintly  and 
stepped  to  the  end  of  the  line  to  run  his  eye  along  it.  I 
refrained  from  carrying  out  an  impulse  to  slap  him  on  the 
back  and  shout :  ' '  Heh,  old  top !  I  am  an  American,  just  out 
of  the  army!  What  are  you  going  to  do  about  it?"  and 
plodded  on  down  the  broad  highway.  How  could  a  city 
be  called  beleaguered  and  a  country  under  martial  law  if 
strangers  could  wander  in  and  out  of  them  at  will,  photo- 
graphing as  they  went? 

Fifteen  kilometers  from  the  capital  I  stopped  at  a  cross- 
roads Gasthaus,  quite  prepared  to  hear  my  suggestion  of 
food  answered  with  a  sneer.  Two  or  three  youthful  ex- 
soldiers  still  in  uniform  sat  at  one  of  the  bare  wooden  tables, 
sipping  the  inevitable  half-liter  mugs  of  beer.  I  ordered 
one  myself,  not  merely  because  I  was  thirsty,  but  because 
that  is  the  invariable  introduction  to  any  request  in  a 

257 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

Bavarian  inn.  As  the  ponderous  but  neat  matron  set  the 
foaming  glass  before  me  with  the  never-lacking  "May  it 
taste  well!"  I  opened  preliminaries  on  the  food  question, 
speaking  gently,  lest  so  presumptive  a  request  from  a  total 
stranger  awaken  the  wrath  of  the  discharged  soldiers. 
Mine  hostess  had  no  such  misgivings.  In  a  voice  as  loud 
and  penetrating  as  my  own  had  been  inarticulate  she  bade 
me  explain  my  desires  in  detail.  I  huskily  whispered  eggs, 
fried  eggs,  a  plebeian  dish,  perhaps,  in  the  land  of  my 
birth,  but  certainly  a  greater  height  of  luxury  in  Germany 
than  I  had  yet  attained.  I  quail  still  at  the  audacity  of  that 
request,  which  I  proffered  with  an  elbow  on  the  alert  to 
protect  my  skull  from  the  reply  by  physical  force  I  more 
than  half  expected.  Instead  she  made  not  a  sound,  after 
the  manner  of  Bavarian  innkeepesses  when  taking  orders, 
and  faded  heavily  but  noiselessly  away  in  the  direction  of 
the  kitchen. 

A  few  minutes  later  I  beheld  two  Spiegeleier  descending 
upon  me,  not  merely  real  eggs,  but  of  that  year's  vintage. 
One  of  them  alone  might  have  been  an  astonishment;  a 
whole  pair  of  them  trotting  side  by  side  as  if  the  Kaiser 
had  never  dreamed  how  fetching  the  letters  Rex  Mundis 
would  look  after  his  name  was  all  but  too  much  for  me.  I 
caught  myself  clinging  to  the  bench  under  me  as  one  might 
to  the  seat  of  an  airplane  about  to  buck,  or  whatever  it  is 
ships  of  the  air  do  when  they  feel  skittish.  A  whole  plate- 
ful of  boiled  potatoes  bore  the  regal  couple  attendance,  and 
a  generous  slab  of  almost  edible  bread,  quite  unlike  a  city 
helping  both  in  size  and  quality,  brought  up  the  rear. 
When  I  reached  for  a  fifty-mark  note  and  asked  for  the 
reckoning  the  hostess  went  through  a  laborious  process  in 
mental  arithmetic  and  announced  that,  including  the 
two  half -liters  of  beer,  I  was  indebted  to  the  extent  of  one 
mk.  twenty-seven!  In  the  slang  of  our  school-days,  "You 
could  have  knocked  me  over  with  a  feather,"  particularly 

258 


ON  THE  ROAD  IN  BAVARIA 

as  four  hours  earlier,  back  in  a  modest  Munich  hotel,  I  had 
been  mulcted  twelve  marks  for  an  Ersatz  breakfast  of 
"coffee,  bread,  marmalade,"  and  four  very  thin  slices  of 
ham. 

Twenty  kilometers  out  of  the  city  the  flat  landscape 
became  slightly  rolling.  Immense  fields  of  mustard  planted 
in  narrow  rows  splashed  it  here  and  there  with  brilliant 
saffron  patches.  Now  and  then  an  Ersatz  bicycle  rattled 
by,  its  rider,  like  the  constant  thin  procession  of  pedestrians, 
decorated  with  the  inevitable  rucksack,  more  or  less  full. 
The  women  always  seemed  the  more  heavily  laden,  but 
no  one  had  the  appearance  of  being  burdened,  so  natural 
a  part  of  the  custom  of  rural  Germany  is  the  knapsack 
of  Swiss  origin.  Each  passer-by  looked  at  me  a  bit  sourly, 
as  if  his  inner  thoughts  were  not  wholly  agreeable,  and 
gave  no  sign  or  sound  of  greeting,  proof  in  itself  that  I  was 
still  in  the  vicinity  of  a  large  city.  But  their  very  expres- 
sions gave  evidence  that  I  was  not  being  taken  for  a  tramp, 
as  would  have  been  the  case  in  many  another  land.  Ger- 
many is  perhaps  the  easiest  country  in  the  world  in  which 
to  make  a  walking  trip,  for  the  habit  of  wandering  the 
highways  and  footpaths,  rucksack  on  back,  is  all  but 
universal.  Yet  this  very  fact  makes  it  also  in  a  way  the 
least  satisfactory,  so  little  attention  does  the  wanderer 
attract,  and  there  are  consequently  fewer  openings  for 
conversation. 

Many  fine  work-horses  were  still  to  be  seen  in  spite  of  the 
drain  of  war,  but  oxen  were  in  the  majority.  At  least  half 
the  laborers  in  the  fields  still  wore  the  red-banded  army 
cap,  often  with  the  Bavarian  cocarde  still  upon  it.  One  could 
not  but  wonder  just  what  were  the  inner  reflections  of  the 
one-armed  or  one-legged  men  to  be  seen  here  and  there 
struggling  along  behind  their  plows,  back  in  their  native 
hills  again,  maimed  for  life  in  a  quarrel  in  which  they  really 
had  neither  part  nor  interest.  Whatever  they  thought, 
is  259 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

they  were  outwardly  as  cheerful  as  their  more  fortunate 
fellows. 

I  had  intended  to  let  my  fellow-pedestrians  break  the 
ice  first,  out  of  curiosity  to  know  how  far  from  the  city 
they  would  begin  to  do  so.  But  the  continued  silence 
grew  a  bit  oppressive,  and  in  mid-afternoon  I  fell  into  step 
with  a  curiously  mated  couple  who  had  quenched  their 
thirst  in  the  same  Gasthaus  as  I  a  few  minutes  before. 
The  woman  was  a  more  than  buxom  Frau  of  some  forty 
summers,  intelligent,  educated,  and  of  decided  personality. 
She  was  bare-headed,  her  full-moon  face  sunburnt  to  a 
rich  brown,  her  massive,  muscular  form  visibly  in  perspira- 
tion, an  empty  rucksack  on  her  back.  Her  husband,  at 
least  sixty,  scrawny,  sallow-faced  under  the  cap  of  a  forest- 
ranger,  hobbled  in  her  wake,  leading  two  rather  work- 
broken  horses.  He  was  what  one  might  call  a  faint  indi- 
vidual, one  of  those  insignificant  characters  that  fade  quickly 
from  the  memory,  a  creature  of  scanty  mentality,  and  a 
veritable  cesspool  of  ignorance,  prejudice,  and  superstition 
thrown  into  relief  by  the  virility  of  his  forceful  spouse. 

The  man  had  set  out  that  morning  from  Munich  to 
deliver  the  horses  to  a  purchaser  a  hundred  miles  away 
in  the  Bavarian  hills.  Poor  as  they  were,  the  animals  had 
been  sold  for  seven  thousand  marks.  A  first-class  horse 
was  worth  six  to  ten  thousand  nowadays,  he  asserted. 
Times  had  indeed  changed.  A  few  years  ago  only  an 
insane  man  would  have  paid  as  many  hundred.  It  was 
a  hot  day  for  the  middle  of  May,  a  quick  change  from  the 
long,  unusual  cold  spell.  The  crops  would  suffer.  He 
didn't  mind  walking,  if  only  beer  were  not  so  expensive 
when  one  got  thirsty.  Having  exhausted  his  scant  mental 
reservoir  with  these  and  a  few  as  commonplace  remarks, 
he  fell  into  the  rear  conversationally  as  well  as  physically, 
and  abandoned  the  field  to  his  sharp-witted  spouse. 

She,  having  more  than  her  share  of  all  too  solid  flesh  to 

260 


ON  THE  ROAD  IN  BAVARIA 

carry,  had  left  the  afternoon  before  and  passed  the  night 
at  a  wayside  inn.  It  was  not  that  she  was  fond  of  such 
excursions  nor  that  she  could  not  trust  her  husband  away 
from  home.  While  he  was  delivering  the  horses  she  would 
go  "hamstering,"  buying  up  a  rucksackful  of  food  among  the 
peasants  of  that  region,  if  any  could  be  coaxed  out  of  them, 
and  they  would  return  by  train.  Fortunately,  fourth-class 
was  still  cheap.  Before  the  war  she  had  never  dreamed 
of  going  anything  but  second.  I  broke  my  usual  rule  of 
the  road  and  mentioned  my  scribbling  proclivities.  A 
moment  later  we  were  deeply  engrossed  in  a  discussion  of 
German  novelists  and  dramatists.  The  placid,  bourgeois- 
looking  Frau  had  read  everything  of  importance  her  literary 
fellow-countrymen  had  produced;  she  was  by  no  means 
ignorant  of  the  best  things  in  that  line  in  the  outside  world. 
Thrown  into  the  crucible  of  her  forceful  mentality,  the 
characters  of  fiction  had  emerged  as  far  more  living  beings 
than  the  men  and  women  who  passed  us  now  and  then 
on  the  road — immensely  more  so,  it  was  evident,  though 
she  did  not  say  so,  than  the  husband  who  plodded  behind 
us,  frankly  admitting  by  his  very  attitude  that  we  had 
entered  waters  hopelessly  beyond  his  depth.  Of  all  the 
restrictions  the  war  had  brought,  none  had  struck  her  quite 
so  directly  as  the  decrease  in  quality  and  number  of  the 
plays  at  Munich's  municipal  theater.  Luckily  they  were 
now  improving.  But  she  always  had  to  go  alone.  He — 
with  a  toss  of  her  head  to  the  rear — didn't  care  for  anything 
but  the  movies.  He  laughed  himself  sick  over  those. 
As  to  opera,  her  greatest  pleasure  in  life,  he  hadn't  the 
faintest  conception  of  what  it  was  all  about.  He  liked 
American  ragtime  (she  pronounced  it  "rhakteam"),  how- 
ever. Still,  America  had  opera  also,  nicht  wahr?  Had  not 
many  of  Germany's  best  singers  gone  to  my  country? 
There  was  Slezak,  for  instance,  and  Schumann-Heink  and 

Farrar  .  .  . 

261 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

I  might  have  questioned  her  notion  of  the  nationality 
of  some  of  the  names  she  mentioned,  but  what  did  it  matter? 

Obviously  it  was  a  waste  of  breath  to  ask  whether  she 
was  pleased  with  the  change  of  events  that  had  given 
Germany  universal  suffrage  for  both  sexes.  She  had  voted, 
of  course,  at  the  first  opportunity,  dragging  him  along  with 
her;  he  had  so  little  interest  in  those  matters.  Her  political 
opinions  were  no  less  decided  than  her  artistic.  Ludwig? 
She  had  often  seen  him.  He  was  rather  a  harmless  individ- 
ual, but  his  position  had  not  been  harmless.  It  was  a 
relief  to  be  rid  of  him  and  all  his  clan.  He  would  have 
made  a  much  better  stable-boy  than  king.  He  had  wanted 
war  just  as  much  as  had  the  Kaiser,  whose  robber-knight 
blood  had  shown  up  in  him.  But  the  Kaiser  had  not 
personally  been  so  guilty  as  some  others,  Ludendorff,  for 
instance  .  .  .  and  so  on.  The  Crown  Prince!  A  clown, 
a  disgrace  to  Germany.  Nobody  had  ever  loved  the  Crown 
Prince — except  the  women  of  a  certain  class. 

Bavaria  would  be  much  better  off  separated  from  the 
Empire.  She  was  of  the  opinion  that  the  majority  of 
Bavarians  preferred  it.  At  least  they  did  in  her  circle, 
though  the  strict  Catholics — she  glanced  half-way  over  her 
shoulder — perhaps  did  not.  Republican,  Sparticist,  or 
Bolshevik — it  didn't  matter  which,  so  long  as  they  could 
get  good,  efficient  rulers.  So  far  they  had  been  deplorably 
weak — no  real  leaders.  The  recent  uprising  in  Munich  had 
been  something  of  a  nuisance,  to  be  sure.  They  were 
rather  glad  the  government  troops  had  come.  But  the 
soldiers  were  mostly  Prussians,  and  once  a  Prussian  gets  in 
you  can  never  pry  him  out  again. 

We  had  reached  the  village  of  Hohenkammer,  thirty-five 
kilometers  out,  which  I  had  chosen  as  my  first  stopping- 
place.  My  companion  of  an  hour  shook  hands  with  what 
I  flattered  myself  was  a  gesture  of  regret  that  our  con- 
versation had  been  so  brief,  fell  back  into  step  with  her 

262 


ON  THE  ROAD  IN  BAVARIA 

movie-and-ragtime-minded  husband,  and  the  pair  disap- 
peared around  the  inn  that  bulged  into  a  sharp  turn  of  the 
highway. 

I  entered  the  invitingly  cool  and  homelike  Gasihaus  pre- 
pared to  be  coldly  turned  away.  Innkeepers  had  often 
been  exacting  in  their  demands  for  credentials  during  my 
earlier  journeys  in  Germany.  With  the  first  mug  of  beer, 
however,  the  portly  landlady  gave  me  permission — one 
can  scarcely  use  a  stronger  expression  than  that  for  the 
casual  way  in  which  guests  are  accepted  in  Bavarian  public- 
houses — to  spend  the  night,  and  that  without  so  much  as 
referring  to  registration  or  proofs  of  identity.  Then,  after 
expressing  her  placid  astonishment  that  I  wanted  to  see 
it  before  bedtime,  she  sent  a  muscular,  barefoot,  but  well- 
scrubbed  kitchen-maid  to  show  me  into  room  No.  i 
above.  It  was  plainly  furnished  with  two  small  wooden 
bedsteads  and  the  prime  necessities,  looked  out  on  the  broad 
highway  and  a  patch  of  rolling  fields  beyond,  and  was  as 
specklessly  clean  as  are  most  Bavarian  inns. 

Rumor  had  it  that  any  stranger  stopping  overnight  in  a 
German  village  courted  trouble  if  he  neglected  to  report 
his  presence  to  the  Burgermeister,  as  he  is  expected  to  do 
to  the  police  in  the  cities.  I  had  been  omitting  the  latter 
formality  on  the  strength  of  my  Wilhelmstrasse  pass. 
These  literal  countrymen,  however,  might  not  see  the  matter 
in  the  same  light.  Moreover,  being  probably  the  only 
stranger  spending  the  night  in  Hohenkammer,  my  presence 
was  certain  to  be  common  knowledge  an  hour  after  my 
arrival.  I  decided  to  forestall  pertinent  inquiries  by  taking 
the  lead  in  making  them. 

The  building  a  few  yards  down  the  highway  bearing 
the  placard  "Wohnung  des  Burgermeisters "  was  a  simple, 
one-story,  whitewashed  cottage,  possibly  the  least  imposing 
dwelling  in  town.  These  village  rulers,  being  chosen  by 
popular  vote  within  the  community,  are  apt  to  be  its  least 

263 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

pompous  citizens,  both  because  the  latter  do  not  care  to 
accept  an  unpaid  office  and  because  the  "plain  people" 
hold  the  voting  majority.  The  woman  who  tried  in  vain 
to  silence  a  howling  child  and  a  barking  dog  before  she 
came  to  the  door  in  answer  to  my  knock  was  just  a  shade 
better  than  the  servant  class.  The  husband  she  summoned  at 
my  request  was  a  peasant  slightly  above  the  general  level. 

He  took  his  time  in  coming  and  greeted,  me  coldly,  a 
trifle  sharply.  One  felt  the  German  official  in  his  attitude, 
with  its  scorn  for  the  mere  petitioner,  the  law's  underling, 
the  subject  class.  Had  I  reported  my  arrival  in  town  in 
the  regulation  manner,  he  would  have  kept  that  attitude. 
I  should  have  been  treated  as  something  between  a  mild 
criminal  and  an  unimportant  citizen  whom  the  law  had 
required  to  submit  himself  to  the  Burgermeister's  good 
pleasure.  Instead,  I  assumed  the  upper  caste  myself. 
I  drew  forth  a  visiting-card  and  handed  it  to  him  with  a 
regal  gesture,  at  the  same  time  addressing  him  in  my  most 
haughty,  university-circles  German.  He  glanced  at  my 
unapologetic  countenance,  stared  at  the  card,  then  back 
into  my  stern  face,  his  official  manner  oozing  slowly  but 
steadily  away,  like  the  rotundity  of  a  lightly  punctured  tire. 
By  the  time  I  began  to  speak  again  he  had  shrunk  to  his 
natural  place  in  society,  that  of  a  simple,  hard-working 
peasant  whom  chance  had  given  an  official  standing. 

The  assertion  that  I  was  a  traveling  correspondent  meant 
little  more  to  him  than  did  the  card  which  he  was  still  turning 
over  and  over  in  his  stubby  fingers  like  some  child's  puzzle. 
The  Germans  are  not  accustomed  to  the  go-and-hunt 
method  of  gathering  information  to  satisfy  popular  curiosity 
concerning  the  ways  of  foreign  lands.  I  must  find  a  better 
excuse  for  coming  to  Hohenkammer  or  I  should  leave  him 
as  puzzled  as  the  card  had.  A  brilliant  idea  struck  me. 
On  the  strength  of  the  "Hoover  crowd"  letter  in  my  pocket, 
I  informed  him  that  I  was  walking  through  Germany  to 

264 


ON  THE  ROAD  IN  BAVARIA 

study  food  conditions,  wording  the  statement  in  a  way  that 
caused  him  to  assume  that  I  had  been  officially  sent  on 
such  a  mission.  He  fell  into  the  trap  at  once.  From  the 
rather  neutral,  unofficial,  yet  unresponsive  attitude  to  which 
my  unexpected  introduction  had  reduced  him  he  changed 
quickly  to  a  bland,  eager  manner  that  showed  genuine  in- 
terest. Here  was  an  American  studying  food  conditions; 
Germany  was  anxiously  awaiting  food  from  America;  it 
was  up  to  him,  as  the  ruler  of  Hohenkammer,  to  put  his 
best  foot  forward  and  give  me  all  the  information  I  desired. 
Here  in  the  country,  he  began,  people  had  never  actually 
suffered  for  want  of  food.  They  had  lived  better  than  he 
had  during  his  four  years  at  the  front.  Fats  were  the  only 
substance  of  which  there  was  any  serious  want.  Milk  was 
also  needed,  but  they  could  get  along.  They  did  not  suffer 
much  for  lack  of  meat;  there  were  tickets  for  it  here  in  the 
country  also,  but  they  were  issued  only  after  the  meat  each 
family  got  by  slaughtering  its  own  animals  had  been 
reckoned  out.  Some  families  got  no  food-tickets  whatever, 
unless  it  was  for  bread.  They  were  what  Germans  call 
Selbstbesorger  ("self -providers") — that  is,  the  great  majority 
of  the  peasants  and  all  the  village  residents  except  the  shop- 
keepers who  cultivated  no  land,  the  priest,  the  schoolmaster, 
and  so  on.  No,  they  had  not  received  any  American  bacon 
or  any  other  Lebensmittel;  every  one  took  that  to  be  a  joke, 
something  the  Allies  were  dangling  before  their  eyes  to 
keep  them  good-natured.  He  had  never  actually  believed 
before  I  turned  up  on  this  official  mission  for  studying  the 
food  situation  that  America  actually  meant  to  send  food. 
Yes,  he  had  been  on  the  western  front  the  entire  war, 
fifty-two  months  in  the  trenches,  and  never  once  wounded. 
His  first  Americans  he  had  seen  at  St.-Mihiel;  as  soldiers 
they  seemed  to  be  pretty  good,  but  of  course  I  must  not 
forget  that  the  German  army  was  far  different  in  1918 

from  what  it  was  in  1914.    He  very  much  doubted  whether 

265 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

Americans  could  have  driven  them  back  in  those  days. 
More  likely  it  would  have  been  the  opposite. 

As  I  turned  to  go  he  took  his  leave  with  a  mixture  of 
deference  and  friendliness.  He  had  not  asked  to  see  the 
papers  bearing  out  all  these  statements  I  had  been  making, 
but  there  was  a  hint  in  the  depth  of  his  eyes  that  he  felt  it 
his  duty  to  do  so,  if  only  he  could  venture  to  make  such 
a  demand  of  so  highly  placed  a  personage.  I  went  far 
enough  away  to  make  sure  he  would  not  have  the  courage 
to  demand  them — which  would  have  been  his  first  act 
had  I  approached  him  as  a  mere  traveler — then  turned  back, 
drawing  the  documents  from  a  pocket  as  if  I  had  just  thought 
of  them.  He  glanced  at  them  in  a  most  apologetic  manner, 
protesting  the  while  that  of  course  he  had  never  for  an  instant 
doubted  my  word,  and  returned  them  with  a  deferential  bow. 

All  in  all,  this  plan  of  posing  as  an  official  scout  of  the 
"Amerikanische  Lebensmittel  Kommission"  had  been  a 
brilliant  idea,  marked  with  a  success  that  moved  me  to  use 
the  same  innocent  ruse  a  score  of  times  when  any  other 
means  of  gathering  information  might  have  been  frustrated. 
One  must  have  a  reasonable  excuse  for  traveling  on  foot  in 
Germany.  To  pretend  to  be  doing  so  for  lack  of  funds 
would  be  absurd,  since  fourth-class  fare  costs  an  infinitesimal 
sum,  much  less  than  the  least  amount  of  food  one  could  live 
on  for  the  same  distance.  The  only  weakness  in  my  simple 
little  trick  was  the  frequent  question  as  to  why  the  Americans 
who  had  sent  me  out  on  my  important  mission  had  not  fur- 
nished me  a  bicycle.  The  German  roads  were  so  good ;  one 
could  cover  so  much  more  ground  on  a  Fahrrad.  .  .  .  Driven 
into  that  corner,  there  was  no  other  defense  but  to  mumble 
something  about  how  much  more  closely  the  foot  traveler 
can  get  in  touch  with  the  plain  people,  or  to  take  advan- 
tage of  some  fork  in  the  conversation  to  change  the  subject. 

When  I  returned  to  the  inn,  the  "guest-room"  was 
crowded.  Stocky,  sun-browned  countrymen  of  all  ages, 

266 


ON  THE  ROAD  IN  BAVARIA 

rather  slow  of  wit,  chatting  of  the  simple  topics  of  the  farm 
in  their  misshapen  Bavarian  dialect,  were  crowded  around 
the  half-dozen  plain  wooden  tables  that  held  their  immense 
beer-mugs,  while  the  air  was  opaque  with  the  smoke  from 
their  long-stemmed  porcelain  pipes.  The  entrance  of  a 
total  stranger  was  evidently  an  event  to  the  circle.  The 
rare  guests  who  spent  the  night  in  Hohenkammer  were 
nearly  always  teamsters  or  peddlers  who  traveled  the 
same  route  so  constantly  that  their  faces  were  as  familiar 
as  those  of  the  village  residents.  As  each  table  in  turn 
caught  sight  of  me,  the  conversation  died  down  like  a 
motor  that  had  slowly  been  shut  off,  until  the  most  absolute 
silence  reigned.  How  long  it  might  have  lasted  would  be 
hard  to  guess.  It  had  already  grown  decidedly  oppressive 
when  I  turned  to  my  nearest  neighbor  and  broke  the  ice 
with  some  commonplace  remark.  He  answered  with  extreme 
brevity  and  an  evidence  of  something  between  bashfulness 
and  a  deference  tinged  with  suspicion.  Several  times  I 
broke  the  silence  which  followed  each  reply  before  these 
reached  the  dignity  of  full  sentences.  It  was  like  starting 
a  motor  on  a  cold  morning.  Bit  by  bit,  however,  we  got 
under  way;  others  joined  in,  and  in  something  less  than  a 
half -hour  we  were  buzzing  along  full  speed  ahead,  the  entire 
roomful  adding  their  voices  to  the  steady  hum  of  con- 
versation which  my  appearance  had  interrupted. 

Thus  far  I  had  not  mentioned  my  nationality  at  the  inn, 
being  in  doubt  whether  the  result  would  be  to  increase 
our  conversational  speed  or  bring  it  to  a  grating  and  sudden 
halt.  When  I  did,  it  was  ludicrously  like  the  shifting  of 
gears.  The  talk  slowed  down  for  a  minute  or  more,  while 
the  information  I  had  vouchsafed  passed  from  table  to  table 
in  half -audible  whispers,  then  sped  ahead  more  noisily,  if 
less  swiftly,  than  before.  On  the  whole,  curiosity  was 
chiefly  in  evidence.  There  was  perhaps  a  bit  of  wonder 
and  certainly  some  incredulity  in  the  simple,  gaping  faces, 

267 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

but  quite  as  surely  no  signs  of  enmity  or  resentment.  Be- 
fore long  the  table  at  which  I  sat  was  doubly  crowded  and 
questions  as  to  America  and  her  ways  were  pouring  down 
upon  me  in  a  flood  which  it  was  quite  beyond  the  power  of 
a  single  voice  to  stem.  Friendly  questions  they  certainly 
were,  without  even  a  suggestion  of  the  sarcasm  one  some- 
times caught  a  hint  of  in  more  haughty  German  circles. 
Yet  in  the  gathering  were  at  least  a  score  of  men  who  had 
been  more  or  less  injured  for  life  in  a  struggle  which  they 
themselves  admitted  the  nation  I  represented  had  turned 
against  them.  I  have  been  so  long  absent  from  my  native 
land  that  I  cannot  quite  picture  to  myself  what  would 
happen  to  the  man  who  thus  walked  in  upon  a  gathering 
of  American  farmers,  boldly  announcing  himself  a  German 
just  out  of  the  army,  but  something  tells  me  he  would  not 
have  passed  so  perfectly  agreeable  an  evening  as  I  did  in 
the  village  inn  of  Hohenkammer 

With  my  third  mug  of  beer  the  landlord  himself  sat  down 
beside  me.  Not,  of  course — prohibition  forbid! — that  I 
had  ordered  a  third  pint  of  beer  in  addition  to  the  two  that 
the  plump  matron  had  served  me  with  a  very  satisfying 
supper.  In  fact,  I  had  not  once  mentioned  the  subject  of 
beverages.  Merely  to  take  one's  seat  at  any  inn  table  in 
Bavaria  is  equivalent  to  shouting,  "Glas  Bier!"  No  ques- 
tions were  asked,  but  mine  host — so  far  more  often  mine 
hostess — is  as  certain  to  set  a  foaming  mug  before  the  new 
arrival  as  he — or  she — is  to  abhor  the  habit  of  drinking 
water;  and  woe  betide  the  man  who  drains  what  he  hopes 
is  his  last  mug  without  rising  instantly  to  his  feet,  for  some 
sharp-eyed  member  of  the  innkeeper's  family  circle  is  sure 
to  thrust  another  dripping  beaker  under  his  chin  before  he 
can  catch  his  breath  to  protest.  On  the  other  hand,  no 
one  is  forced  to  gage  his  thirst  by  that  of  his  neighbors,  as 
in  many  a  less  placid  land.  The  treating  habit  is  slightly 
developed  in  rural  Bavaria.  On  very  special  occasions 

268 


ON  THE  ROAD  IN  BAVARIA 

some  one  may  "set  'em  up"  for  the  friend  beside  him,  or 
even  for  three  or  four  of  his  cronies,  but  it  is  the  almost 
invariable  rule  that  each  client  call  for  his  own  reckoning 
at  the  end  of  the  evening. 

The  innkeeper  had  returned  at  late  dusk  from  tilling  his 
fields  several  miles  away.  Like  his  fellows  throughout 
Bavaria,  he  was  a  peasant  except  by  night  and  on  holidays. 
During  the  working-day  the  burden,  if  it  could  be  called  one, 
of  his  urban  establishment  fell  upon  his  wife  and  children. 
It  was  natural,  therefore,  that  the  topic  with  which  he  wedged 
his  way  into  the  conversation  should  have  been  that  of 
husbandry.  Seeds,  he  asserted,  were  still  fairly  good, 
fortunately,  though  in  a  few  species  the  war  had  left  them 
sadly  inferior.  But  the  harvest  would  be  poor  this  year. 
The  coldest  spring  in  as  far  back  as  he  could  remember 
had  lasted  much  later  than  ever  before.  Then,  instead  of 
the  rain  they  should  have  had,  scarcely  a  drop  had  fallen 
and  things  were  already  beginning  to  shrivel.  As  if  they 
had  not  troubles  enough  as  it  was!  With  beer  gone  up  to 
sixteen  pfennigs  a  pint  instead  of  the  ten  of  the  good  old 
days  before  the  war!  And  such  beer!  Hardly  3  per  cent, 
alcohol  in  it  now  instead  of  1 1 !  The  old  peasants  had 
stopped  drinking  it  entirely — the  very  men  who  had  been 
his  best  customers.  They  distilled  a  home-made  Schnapps 
now,  and  stayed  at  home  to  drink  it.  Naturally  such  weak 
stuff  as  this  —  he  held  up  his  half -empty  mug  with  an 
expression  of  disgust  on  his  face — could  not  satisfy  the  old- 
fashioned  Bavarian  taste.  Before  the  war  he  had  served 
an  average  of  a  thousand  beers  a  day.  Now  he  drew  barely 
two  hundred.  And  as  fast  as  business  fell  off  taxes  increased. 
He  would  give  a  good  deal  to  know  where  they  were  going 
to  end.  Especially  now,  with  these  ridiculous  terms  the 
Allies  were  asking  Germany  to  sign.  How  could  they 
sign  ?  It  would  scarcely  leave  them  their  shirt  and  trousers. 

And  they,  the  peasants  and  country  people,  would  have 

269 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

to  pay  for  it,  they  and  the  factory  hands;  not  the  big- 
wigs in  Berlin  and  Essen  who  were  so  ready  to  accept 
England's  challenge.  No,  it  would  not  pay  Bavaria  to 
assert  her  independence.  They  did  not  love  the  northern 
German,  but  when  all  was  said  and  done  it  would  be  better 
to  stick  with  him. 

Suddenly  the  brain-racking  dialect  in  which  the  Wirt 
and  his  cronies  had  been  sharing  their  views  on  this  and 
other  subjects  halted  and  died  down  to  utter  silence,  with 
that  same  curious  similarity  to  a  shut-off  motor  that  my 
entrance  had  caused.  I  looked  about  me,  wondering  what 
I  had  done  to  bring  on  this  new  stillness.  Every  man  in  the 
room  had  removed  his  hat  and  all  but  two  their  porcelain 
pipes.  Except  for  the  latter,  who  puffed  faintly  and  noise- 
lessly now  and  then,  the  whole  assembly  sat  perfectly 
motionless.  For  a  moment  or  more  I  was  puzzled;  then  a 
light  suddenly  broke  upon  me.  The  bell  of  the  village 
church  was  tolling  the  end  of  evening  vespers. 

Hohenkammer,  like  the  majority  of  Bavarian  towns, 
was  a  strictly  Catholic  community.  The  women,  from  the 
barefoot  kitchen  servant  to  the  highest  lady  of  the  village, 
had  slipped  quietly  off  to  church  while  their  husbands 
gathered  in  the  Gasthaus,  and  the  latter  were  now  showing 
their  respect  for  the  ceremony  they  had  attended  by  proxy. 
They  sat  erect,  without  a  bowed  head  among  them,  but  in 
the  motionless  silence  of  "living  statues,"  except  that 
toward  the  end,  as  if  in  protest  that  their  good  crony,  the 
village  priest,  should  take  undue  advantage  of  his  position 
and  prolong  their  pose  beyond  reason  with  his  persistent 
tolling,  several  squirmed  in  their  seats,  and  two,  possibly 
the  free-thinkers  of  the  community,  hawked  and  spat 
noisily  and  what  seemed  a  bit  ostentatiously.  As  the 
ringing  ceased,  each  clumsily  crossed  himself  rather  hastily, 
slapped  his  hat  back  upon  his  head,  and  the  buzz  of  con- 
versation rapidly  rose  again  to  its  previous  volume. 

270 


XIII 

INNS   AND   BYWAYS 

A  BRILLIANT,  almost  tropical  sun,  staring  in  upon  me 
*•  through  flimsy  white  cotton  curtains,  awoke  me  soon 
after  five.  Country  people  the  world  over  have  small  pa- 
tience with  late  risers,  and  make  no  provision  for  guests 
who  may  have  contracted  that  bad  habit.  My  companions 
of  the  night  before  had  long  since  scattered  to  their  fields 
when  I  descended  to  the  Gastzimmer,  veritably  gleaming 
with  the  sand-and-water  polish  it  had  just  received.  The 
calmly  busy  landlady  solicitously  inquired  how  I  had  slept, 
and  while  I  forced  down  my  "breakfast"  of  Ersatz  coffee 
and  dull-brown  peasant  bread  she  laid  before  me  the  inn 
register,  a  small,  flat  ledger  plainly  bearing  the  marks  of  its 
profession  in  the  form  of  beer  and  grease  stains  on  its  cover 
and  first  pages.  I  had  been  mistaken  in  supposing  that 
Bavaria's  change  to  a  republic  had  dispensed  with  that 
once  important  formality.  In  fact,  I  recall  but  one  public 
lodging  on  my  German  journey  where  my  personal  history 
was  not  called  for  before  my  departure.  But  there  was 
nothing  to  have  hindered  me  from  assuming  a  fictitious 
identity.  When  I  had  scrawled  across  the  page  under  the 
hieroglyphics  of  previous  guests  the  half-dozen  items 
required  by  the  police,  the  hostess  laid  the  book  away 
without  so  much  as  looking  at  the  new  entry.  My  bill 
for  supper,  lodging,  "breakfast,"  and  four  pints  of  beer 
was  five  marks  and  seventy-two  pfennigs,  and  the  order- 

271 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

loving  Frau  insisted  on  scooping  out  of  her  satchel  the 
last  tiny  copper  to  make  the  exact  change  before  she  wished 
me  good  day  and  a  pleasant  journey. 

The  single  village  street,  which  was  also  the  main  high- 
way, was  thronged  with  small  boys  slowly  going  to 
school  when  I  stepped  out  into  the  flooding  sunshine  soon 
after  seven.  One  of  the  most  striking  sights  in  Germany 
is  the  flocks  of  children  everywhere,  in  spite  of  the  wastage 
of  more  than  four  years  of  war  and  food  scarcity.  Cer- 
tainly none  of  these  plump  little  "square-heads"  showed 
any  evidence  of  having  suffered  from  hunger;  compared 
with  the  pale,  anemic  urchins  of  large  cities  they  were  in- 
deed pictures  of  health.  They  resembled  the  latter  as  ripe 
tomatoes  resemble  gnarled  and  half -grown  green  apples. 
At  least  half  of  them  wore  some  portion  of  army  uniform, 
cut  down  from  the  war-time  garb  of  their  elders,  no  doubt, 
the  round,  red-banded  cap  covered  nearly  every  head,  and 
many  carried  their  books  and  coarse  lunches  in  the  hairy 
cowhide  knapsacks  of  the  trenches,  usually  with  a  cracked 
slate  and  the  soiled  rag  with  which  they  wiped  their  exer- 
cises off  it  swinging  from  a  strap  at  the  rear.  They  showed 
as  much  curiosity  at  the  sight  of  a  stranger  in  town  as  then- 
fathers  had  the  night  before,  but  when  I  stealthily  opened 
my  kodak  and  strolled  slowly  toward  them  they  stampeded 
in  a  body  and  disappeared  pellmell  within  the  school- 
house  door. 

The  sun  was  already  high  in  the  cloudless  sky.  It  would 
have  been  hard  to  imagine  more  perfect  weather.  The 
landscape,  too,  was  entrancing;  gently  rolling  fields  deep- 
green  with  spring  alternating  with  almost  black  patches 
of  evergreen  forests,  through  which  the  broad,  light-gray 
highroad  wound  and  undulated  as  soothingly  as  an  immense 
ocean-liner  on  a  slowly  pulsating  sea.  Every  few  miles  a 
small  town  rose  above  the  horizon,  now  astride  the  highway, 
now  gazing  down  upon  it  from  a  sloping  hillside.  Wonder- 

272 


INNS  AND   BYWAYS 

fully  clean  towns  they  were,  speckless  from  their  scrubbed 
floors  to  their  whitewashed  church  steeples,  all  framed  in 
velvety  green  meadows  or  the  fertile  fields  in  which  their 
inhabitants  of  both  sexes  plodded  diligently  but  never 
hurriedly  through  the  labors  of  the  day.  It  was  difficult 
to  imagine  how  these  simple,  gentle-spoken  folk  could 
have  won  a  world-wide  reputation  as  the  most  savage  and 
brutal  warriors  in  modern  history. 

Toward  noon  appeared  the  first  of  Bavaria's  great  hop- 
fields,  the  plants  that  would  climb  house-high  by  August 
now  barely  visible.  In  many  of  them  the  hop-frames 
were  still  being  set  up — vast  networks  of  poles  taller  than 
the  telegraph  lines  along  the  way,  crisscrossed  with  more 
slender  crosspieces  from  which  hung  thousands  of  thin 
strings  ready  for  the  climbing  vines.  The  war  had  affected 
even  this  bucolic  industry.  Twine,  complained  a  peasant 
with  whom  I  paused  to  chat,  had  more  than  quadrupled 
in  price,  and  one  was  lucky  at  that  not  to  find  the  stuff 
made  of  paper  when  the  time  came  to  use  it.  In  many  a 
field  the  erection  of  the  frames  had  not  yet  begun,  and 
the  poles  still  stood  in  clusters  strikingly  resembling  Indian 
wigwams,  where  they  had  been  stacked  after  the  harvest 
of  the  September  before. 

At  Pfaffenhofen,  still  posing  as  a  "food  controller,"  I 
dropped  in  on  a  general  merchant.  The  ruse  served  as 
an  opening  to  extended  conversation  here  even  better 
than  it  had  in  the  smaller  town  behind.  The  Kaufmann 
was  almost  too  eager  to  impress  me,  and  through  me 
America,  with  the  necessity  of  replenishing  his  shrunken 
stock.  He  reiterated  that  fats,  soap,  rice,  soup  materials, 
milk,  cocoa  and  sugar  were  most  lacking,  and  in  the  order 
named.  Then  there  was  tobacco,  more  scarce  than  any 
of  these,  except  perhaps  fats.  If  only  America  would  send 
them  tobacco!  In  other  lines?  Well,  all  sorts  of  clothing 
materials  were  needed,  of  course  they  had  been  hoping 

273 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

ever  since  the  armistice  that  America  would  send  them 
cotton.  People  were  wearing  all  manner  of  Ersatz  cloth. 
He  took  from  his  show-window  what  looked  like  a  very 
coarse  cotton  shirt,  but  which  had  a  brittle  feel,  and  spread 
it  out  before  me.  It  was  made  of  nettles.  Sometimes  the 
lengthwise  threads  were  cotton  and  the  cross  threads 
nettle,  which  made  a  bit  more  durable  stuff,  but  he  could 
not  say  much  even  for  that.  As  to  the  nettle  shirt  before 
me,  he  sold  it  for  fourteen  marks  because  he  refused  to 
accept  profit  on  such  stuff.  But  what  good  was  such  a 
shirt  to  the  peasants?  They  wore  it  a  few  days,  washed  it 
once  and — kaput,  finished,  it  crumpled  together  like  burnt 
paper.  Many  children  could  no  longer  go  to  school;  their 
clothes  had  been  patched  out  of  existence.  During  the  war 
there  had  been  few  marriages  in  the  rural  districts  because, 
the  boys  being  away  at  war,  a  fair  division  of  the  inheri- 
tances could  not  be  made  even  when  the  girls  found  matches. 
Now  many  wanted  to  marry,  but  most  of  them  found  it  im- 
possible because  they  could  not  get  any  bed-linen  or  many 
of  the  other  things  that  are  necessary  to  establish  a  house- 
hold. No,  he  did  not  think  there  had  been  any  great 
increase  in  irregularities  between  the  sexes  because  of  war 
conditions,  at  least  not  in  such  well-to-do  farming  com- 
munities as  the  one  about  Pfaffenhofen.  He  had  heard, 
however,  that  in  the  large  cities  .  .  . 

The  Bavarians  are  not  merely  great  lovers  of  flowers; 
they  have  no  hesitancy  in  showing  that  fondness,  as  is  so 
often  the  case  with  less  simple  people.  The  house  window, 
be  it  only  that  of  the  humblest  little  crossroads  inn,  which 
was  not  gay  with  blossoms  of  a  half-dozen  species  was  a 
curiosity.  About  every  house,  in  every  yard  were  great 
bushes  of  lilac,  hydrangea,  and  several  other  flowering 
shrubs;  add  to  this  the  fact  that  all  fruit-trees  were  just 
then  in  full  bloom  and  it  will  be  less  difficult  to  picture  the 
veritable  flower-garden  through  which  I  was  tramping. 

274 


INNS  AND  BYWAYS 

Nor  were  the  inhabitants  satisfied  to  let  inanimate  nature 
alone  decorate  herself  with  spring.  The  sourest-looking  old 
peasant  was  almost  sure  to  have  a  cluster  of  flowers  tucked 
into  a  shirt  buttonhole  or  the  lapel  of  his  well-worn  jacket; 
girls  and  women  decked  themselves  out  no  more  universally 
than  did  the  males  of  all  ages,  from  the  tottering  urchin 
not  yet  old  enough  to  go  to  school  to  the  doddering  grand- 
father leaning  his  gnarled  hands  on  his  home-made  cane 
in  the  shade  of  the  projecting  house  eaves.  Men  and  boys 
wore  them  most  often  in  the  bands  of  their  curious  slouch- 
hats,  beside  the  turkey  feather  or  the  shaving-brush  with 
which  the  Bavarian  headgear  is  frequently  embellished  the 
year  round. 

In  each  village  a  new  May-pole  towered  above  everything 
else,  often  visible  when  the  hamlet  itself  was  quite  out  of 
sight.  On  the  first  day  of  the  month  that  of  the  year 
before  had  been  cut  down  and  the  tallest  pine-tree  available, 
trimmed  of  its  branches  except  for  a  little  tuft  at  the  top, 
had  been  set  up  before  the  chief  Gasthaus,  amid  celebrations 
that  included  the  emptying  of  many  kegs  of  beer.  Its 
upper  half  encircled  with  wreaths,  streamers,  and  winding, 
flower- woven  lianas,  and  decorated  with  a  dozen  flags,  it 
suggested  at  a  distance  the  totem-pole  of  some  childlike 
tropical  tribe  rather  than  the  plaything  of  a  plodding  and 
laborious  people  of  western  Europe. 

I  set  my  pace  in  a  way  to  bring  me  into  the  larger  towns 
at  noon  and  to  some  quaint  and  quiet  village  at  nightfall. 
In  the  latter,  one  was  surer  to  find  homelike  accommoda- 
tions and  simpler,  more  naive  people  with  whom  to  chat 
through  the  evening.  The  cities,  even  of  only  a  few  thousand 
inhabitants,  too  nearly  resembled  Berlin  or  Munich  to 
prove  of  continued  interest.  The  constant  traveler,  too, 
comes  to  abhor  the  world-wide  sameness  of  city  hotels. 
Moreover,  the  larger  the  town  the  scantier  was  the  food 
in  the  Germany  of  1919.  The  guest  who  sat  down  to  an 
19  275 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

excellently  cooked  dinner  of  a  thick  peasant  soup,  a  man's 
size  portion  of  beef,  veal,  or  pork,  potatoes  in  unlimited 
quantity,  bread  that  was  almost  white  and  made  of  real 
wheat,  and  a  few  other  vegetables  thrown  in,  all  for  a  cost 
of  two  marks,  might  easily  have  imagined  that  all  this 
talk  of  food  shortage  was  mere  pretense.  Surely  this  last 
month  before  the  beginning  of  harvest,  in  the  last  year 
of  the  war,  with  the  question  of  signing  or  not  signing  the 
peace  terms  throbbing  through  all  Germany,  was  the  time 
of  all  times  to  find  a  certain  answer  to  the  query  of  the  out- 
side world  as  to  the  truth  of  the  German's  cry  of  starvation. 
But  the  answer  one  found  in  the  smaller  villages  of  Bavaria 
would  have  been  far  from  the  true  one  of  the  nation  at 
large. 

Now  and  then  my  plans  went  wrong.  Conditions  dif- 
fered, even  in  two  towns  of  almost  identical  appearance. 
Thus  at  Ingolstadt,  which  was  large  enough  to  have  been 
gaunt  with  hunger,  there  was  every  evidence  of  plenty. 
Here  I  had  expected  trouble  also  of  another  sort.  The 
town  was  heavily  garrisoned,  as  it  had  been  even  before  the 
war.  Soldiers  swarmed  everywhere;  at  the  inn  where  my 
tramping  appetite  was  so  amply  satisfied  they  surrounded 
me  on  every  side.  I  was  fully  prepared  to  be  halted  at 
any  moment,  perhaps  to  be  placed  under  arrest.  Instead, 
the  more  openly  I  watched  military  maneuvers,  the  more 
boldly  I  put  questions  to  the  youths  in  uniform,  the  less  I 
was  suspected.  In  Reichertshofen  the  night  before,  where 
I  had  sat  some  time  in  silence,  reading,  in  a  smoke-clouded 
beer-hall  crowded  with  laborers  from  the  local  mills,  far 
more  questioning  glances  had  been  cast  in  my  direction. 

On  the  other  hand  the  hamlet  I  chose  for  the  night  some- 
times proved  a  bit  too  small.  One  must  strike  a  careful 
average  or  slip  from  the  high  ridge  of  plenitude.  Denken- 
dorf,  an  afternoon's  tramp  north  of  the  garrison  city,  was 
so  tiny  that  the  waddling  old  landlady  gasped  at  my  placid 

276 


INNS  AND   BYWAYS 

assumption  that  of  course  she  could  serve  me  supper. 
Beer,  to  be  sure,  she  could  furnish  me  as  long  as  the  evening 
lasted ;  das  beste  Zimmer — the  very  best  room  in  the  house — 
and  it  was  almost  imposing  in  its  speckless  solemnity — 
I  could  have  all  to  myself,  if  I  cared  to  pay  as  high  as  a  whole 
mark  for  the  night!  But  food  .  .  .  She  mumbled  and 
shook  her  head,  waddled  like  a  matronly  old  duck  back  and 
forth  between  the  "guest-room"  and  the  kitchen,  with  its 
massive  smoked  beams  and  medieval  appliances,  she 
brought  me  more  beer,  she  pooh-poohed  my  suggestion  that 
the  chickens  and  geese  that  flocked  all  through  the  hamlet 
might  offer  a  solution  to  the  problem,  and  at  length  dis- 
appeared making  some  inarticulate  noise  that  left  me  in 
doubt  whether  she  had  caught  an  idea  or  had  decided  to 
abandon  me  to  my  hungry  fate. 

The  short  night  had  fallen  and  I  had  fully  reconciled 
myself  to  retiring  supperless  when  the  kitchen  door  let  in  a 
feeble  shaft  of  light  which  silhouetted  my  cask-shaped  hostess 
approaching  with  something  in  her  hands.  No  doubt  she 
was  foisting  another  mug  of  beer  upon  me!  My  mistake. 
With  a  complacent  grunt  she  placed  on  the  no  longer  visible 
table  two  well-filled  plates  and  turned  to  light  a  strawlike 
wick  protruding  from  a  flat  bottle  of  grease.  By  its  slight 
rays  I  made  out  a  heaping  portion  of  boiled  potatoes  and 
an  enormous  Pfannkuchen — the  German  cross  between  an 
omelet  and  a  pancake.  It  must  have  been  a  robust  appe- 
tite indeed  that  did  not  succumb  before  this  substitute 
for  the  food  which  Denkendorf ,  in  the  opinion  of  the  land- 
lady, so  entirely  lacked. 

Meanwhile  I  had  made  a  new  acquaintance.  A  young 
soldier  in  the  uniform  of  a  sergeant  had  for  some  time  been 
my  only  companion  in  the  "guest-room."  His  face  sug- 
gested intelligence  and  an  agreeable  personality.  For  a 
long  time  we  both  sipped  our  beer  in  silence  at  opposite 
tables.  I  broke  the  ice  at  last,  well  aware  that  he  would 

277 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

not  have  done  so  had  we  sat  there  all  night.  As  in  the 
older  sections  of  our  own  country,  so  in  the  Old  World  it 
is  not  the  custom  to  speak  unnecessarily  to  strangers. 

He  answered  my  casual  remark  with  a  smile,  however, 
rose,  and,  carrying  his  mug  of  beer  with  him,  sat  down  on 
the  opposite  side  of  my  table.  I  took  pains  to  bring  out 
my  nationality  at  the  first  opportunity. 

"American?"  he  cried,  with  the  nearest  imitation  I  had 
yet  heard  in  Germany  of  the  indignant  surprise  I  had 
always  expected  that  information  to  evoke,  "and  what  are 
you  doing  here?" 

There  was  something  more  than  mere  curiosity  in  his 
voice,  though  his  tone  could  not  quite  have  been  called  angry. 
It  was  more  nearly  the  German  official  guttural.  I  smiled 
placidly  as  I  answered,  throwing  in  a  hint,  as  usual,  about 
the  food  commission.  He  was  instantly  mollified.  He 
did  not  even  suggest  seeing  my  papers,  though  he  announced 
himself  the  traveling  police  force  of  that  region,  covering 
some  ten  small  towns.  Within  five  minutes  we  were  as 
deep  in  conversation  as  if  we  had  discovered  ourselves  to 
be  friends  of  long  standing.  He  was  of  a  naturally  sociable 
disposition,  like  all  Bavarians,  and  his  sociability  was  dis- 
tinctly enhanced  when  I  shared  with  him  my  last  nibble 
of  chocolate  and  "split"  with  him  one  of  my  rare  American 
cigars.  He  had  not  had  a  smoke  in  a  week,  not  even  an 
Ersatz  one;  and  it  was  at  least  a  year  since  he  had  tasted 
chocolate.  In  return  for  my  appalling  sacrifice  he  insisted 
on  presenting  me  with  the  two  eggs  he  had  been  able  to 
"hamster"  during  that  day's  round  of  duty.  When  I 
handed  them  to  the  caisson-built  landlady  with  instruc- 
tions to  serve  us  one  each  in  the  morning,  my  relations 
with  the  police-soldier  were  established  on  a  friendly  basis 
for  life. 

Before  bedtime  we  had  reached  the  point  where  he  turned 
his  revolver  over  to  me,  that  I  might  satisfy  my  curiosity 

278 


INNS  AND   BYWAYS 

as  to  its  inner  workings.  In  return  I  spread  all  but  one 
of  my  official  and  pseudo-official  papers  out  before  him 
in  the  flickering  light  of  the  grease  wick,  not  because  he  had 
made  any  formal  request  to  see  them,  but  that  I  might  keep 
him  amused,  as  one  holds  the  interest  of  a  baby  by  flashing 
something  gaudy  before  it  or  holding  a  ticking  watch  to  its 
ear.  Not,  let  it  be  plainly  understood,  that  my  new  friend 
was  of  low  intellectual  level.  Far  from  it.  A  Niirnberger 
of  twenty-five  who  had  seen  all  the  war,  on  several  fronts, 
he  was  judicious  and  "keen,"  quite  equal  to  his  new  posi- 
tion as  country  gendarme.  But  there  is  something  naive, 
babylike  in  the  Bavarian  character  even  after  it  has  been 
tempered  and  remolded  by  wide  and  varied  experience. 

The  next  morning  he  insisted  on  rising  early  to  accompany 
me  a  few  miles  on  my  journey.  He  expressed  his  astonish- 
ment that  I  carried  no  weapon,  and  though  he  laughed  at 
the  notion  that  I  was  in  any  danger  without  one,  he  did 
not  propose  that  anything  should  befall  me  on  his  "beat." 
As  we  advanced,  our  conversation  grew  more  serious.  He 
was  not  quite  ready  to  admit  that  Germany  had  started 
the  war,  but  he  was  forceful  in  his  assertion  that  the  capi- 
talists and  the  "Old  German"  party  had  wanted  it.  The 
working-class,  he  insisted,  would  never  have  gone  into  the 
war  if  those  higher  up  had  not  made  them  think  Germany 
had  been  treacherously  attacked,  that  England  and  France 
had  determined  to  annihilate  her.  He  was  still  not  wholly 
convinced  that  those  were  not  the  facts,  but  he  was  enraged 
at  what  he  insisted  were  the  crimes  of  the  capitalists.  It 
goes  without  saying  that  he  was  a  Socialist,  his  leanings 
being  toward  the  conservative  side  of  that  widely  spread 
party.  He  told  several  tales  of  fraternization  with  French 
soldiers  of  similar  opinions  during  his  years  in  the  trenches. 
The  republican  idea,  he  asserted,  had  been  much  in  evi- 
dence among  the  working-classes  long  before  the  war, 
but  it  had  never  dared  openly  show  its  head.  For  German 

279 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

rulers,  from  Kaiser  and  princes  down  to  his  own  army  officers, 
he  had  the  bitterest  scorn.  Their  first  and  foremost  interest 
in  life  he  summed  up  under  the  head  of  "women."  Some 
of  his  personal-knowledge  anecdotes  of  the  "high  and 
mighty"  were  not  fit  to  print.  His  opinions  of  German 
womanhood,  or  at  least  girlhood,  were  astonishingly  low 
for  a  youth  of  so  naive  and  optimistic  a  character.  On  the 
other  hand  he  lapsed  every  little  while  into  childlike  boast- 
ing of  Germany's  military  prowess,  quite  innocently,  as  one 
might  point  to  the  fertility  or  the  sunshine  of  one's  native 
land.  The  Germans  had  first  used  gas;  they  had  been  the 
first  to  invent  gas-masks;  they  had  air-raided  the  capitals 
of  their  enemies,  sunk  them  at  sea  long  before  the  slow- 
witted  Allies  had  ever  thought  of  any  such  weapons  or 
contrivances. 

Some  ten  miles  from  our  eating-place  we  drifted  into  the 
street-lanes  of  a  huddled  little  village,  older  than  the  Ger- 
man Empire,  in  quest  of  the  Gasikaus.  Three  hours  of 
tramping  are  sufficient  to  recall  the  refreshing  qualities  of 
Bavarian  beer.  However  reprehensible  it  may  have  been 
before  the  war,  with  its  dreadful  eleven  percentage  of  alcohol, 
it  was  certainly  a  harmless  beverage  in  1919,  superior  in 
attack  on  a  roadside  thirst  even  to  nature's  noblest  sub- 
stitute, water.  If  the  reader  will  promise  not  to  use  the 
evidence  against  me,  I  will  confess  that  I  emptied  as  many 
as  eight  pint  mugs  of  beer  during  a  single  day  of  my  German 
tramp,  and  was  as  much  intoxicated  at  the  end  of  it  as  I 
should  have  been  with  as  many  quarts  of  milk.  Nor 
would  the  natural  conclusion  that  I  am  impervious  to 
strong  drink  be  just;  the  exact  opposite  is  the  bitter  truth. 
The  adult  Bavarian  who  does  not  daily  double,  if  not 
treble,  my  best  performance  is  either  an  oddity  or  a  com- 
plete financial  failure,  yet  I  have  never  seen  one  affected 
by  his  constant  libations  even  to  the  point  of  increased 
gaiety. 

280 


INNS  AND  BYWAYS 

The  justly  criticized  features  of  our  saloons  are  quite  un- 
known in  the  Bavarian  Gasthduser.  In  the  first  place,  they 
are  patronized  by  both  sexes  and  all  classes,  with  the  con- 
sequent improvement  in  character.  On  Sunday  evening, 
after  his  sermon,  the  village  priest  or  pastor,  the  latter 
accompanied  by  his  wife,  drops  in  for  a  pint  before  retiring 
to  his  well-earned  rest.  Rowdyism,  foul  language,  ob- 
scenity either  of  word  or  act  are  as  rare  as  in  the  family 
circle.  Never  having  been  branded  society's  black  sheep, 
the  Bavarian  beer-hall  is  quite  as  respected  and  self-respect- 
ing a  member  of  the  community  as  any  other  business  house. 
It  is  the  village  club  for  both  sexes,  with  an  atmosphere 
quite  as  ladylike  as,  if  somewhat  less  effeminate,  than,  a  sew- 
ing-circle; and  it  is  certainly  a  boon  to  the  thirsty  traveler 
tramping  the  sun-flooded  highways.  All  of  which  is  not 
a  plea  for  beer-drinking  by  those  who  do  not  care  for  the 
dreadful  stuff,  but  merely  a  warning  that  personally  I 
propose  to  continue  the  wicked  habit  as  long — whenever,  at 
least,  I  am  tramping  the  roads  of  Bavaria. 

These  village  inns  are  all  of  the  same  type.  A  quaint  and 
placid  building  with  the  mellowed  atmosphere  that  comes 
with  respectable  old  age,  usually  of  two  stories,  always 
with  an  exceedingly  steep  roof  from  which  peer  a  few  dormer- 
windows,  like  wondering  urchins  perched  in  some  place  of 
vantage,  is  pierced  through  the  center  by  a  long,  low,  cool 
passageway  that  leads  to  the  family  garden  or  back  yard. 
Just  inside  the  street  entrance  this  hallway  is  flanked  by 
two  doors,  on  one  of  which,  in  old  Gothic  letters,  is  the  word 
' '  Gastzimmer ' '  (guest-room) .  Thus  the  new-comer  is  spared 
the  embarrassment  of  bursting  in  upon  the  intimacies  of 
the  family  circle  that  would  result  from  his  entering  the 
opposite  door.  The  world  has  few  public  places  as  home- 
like as  the  cool  and  cozy  room  to  which  the  placarded  door 
gives  admittance.  Unpainted  wooden  tables,  polished 
gleaming  white  with  sand  and  water,  fill  the  room  without 

281 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

any  suggestion  of  crowding.  At  one  side  sits  a  porcelain 
stove,  square-faced  and  high,  its  surface  broken  into  small 
square  plaques,  the  whole  shining  intensely  with  its  blue, 
blue-gray,  or  greenish  tint.  Beyond  this,  in  a  corner,  a 
tall,  old-time  clock  with  weights  tick-tacks  with  the  dignified, 
placid  serenity  of  quiet  old  age.  Three  or  four  pairs  of 
antlers  protrude  from  the  walls ;  several  small  mirrors,  and  a 
number  of  framed  pictures,  most  of  them  painful  to  the 
artistic  sense  that  has  reached  the  first  stage  of  development, 
break  the  soothingly  tinted  surfaces  between  them.  In 
the  corner  behind  the  door  is  a  small  glass-faced  cupboard 
in  which  hang  the  long,  hand-decorated  porcelain  pipes 
of  the  local  smoking-club,  each  with  the  name  of  its  owner 
stenciled  upon  it.  Far  to  the  rear  sits  a  middle-aged  phono- 
graph with  the  contrite  yet  defiant  air  of  a  recent  comer 
who  realizes  himself  rather  out  of  place  and  not  over-popular 
in  the  conservative  old  society  upon  which  he  has  forced 
himself.  Deep  window  embrasures,  gay  with  flowers  in 
dull-red  pots,  hung  with  snowy  little  lace  curtains,  are 
backed  by  even  more  immaculate  glass,  in  small  squares. 
This  bulges  outwardly  in  a  way  to  admit  a  maximum  of 
light,  yet  is  quite  impenetrable  from  the  outside,  from  where 
it  merely  throws  back  into  the  face  of  the  would-be  observer 
his  own  reflection.  In  the  afternoon  a  powerfully  built  young 
woman,  barefoot  or  shod  only  in  low  slippers,  is  almost 
certain  to  be  found  ironing  at  one  of  the  tables.  At  the 
others  sit  a  guest  or  two,  their  heavy  glass  or  stone  mugs 
before  them.  No  fowls,  dogs,  or  other  domestic  nuisances 
are  permitted  to  enter,  though  the  placid,  Bavarian  family 
cat  is  almost  sure  to  look  each  new-comer  over  with  a 
more  or  less  disapproving  air  from  her  place  of  vantage 
toward  the  rear.  It  would  take  sharp  eyes  indeed  to 
detect  a  fleck  of  dust,  a  beer  stain,  or  the  tiniest  cobweb 
anywhere  in  the  room. 

Over  the  door  is  a  sign,  as  time-mellowed  as  an  ancient 

282 


INNS  AND  BYWAYS 

painting,  announcing  the  price  of  a  liter  of  beer — risen  to 
thirty-two  or  thirty-four  pfennigs  in  these  sad  war-times — 
though  seldom  mentioning  the  beverage  by  name.  That 
information  is  not  needed  in  a  community  where  other 
drinks  are  as  strangers  in  a  strange  land.  About  the  spigots 
at  the  rear  hovers  a  woman  who  might  resent  being  called 
old  and  fat,  yet  who  would  find  it  difficult  to  convince  a 
critical  observer  that  she  could  lay  any  claim  to  being 
either  young  or  slender.  As  often  as  a  guest  enters  to 
take  his  seat  at  a  table,  with  a  mumbled  "Scoot"  she 
waddles  forward  with  a  dripping  half-liter  mug  of  beer, 
bringing  another  the  instant  her  apparently  dull  but  really 
eagle  eye  catches  sight  of  one  emptied.  At  her  waist  hangs 
from  a  strap  over  the  opposite  shoulder  a  huge  satchel-purse 
of  ancient  design  from  which  she  scoops  up  a  pudgy  handful 
of  copper  and  pewter  coins  whenever  a  guest  indicates 
that  he  is  ready  to  pay  his  reckoning,  and  dismisses  him 
with  another  "Scoot"  as  he  opens  the  door.  From  a  score 
to  a  hundred  times  an  hour,  depending  on  the  time  of  day, 
the  size  of  the  village,  and  the  popularity  of  that  particular 
establishment,  a  bell  tinkles  and  she  waddles  to  a  little 
trap-door  near  the  spigots  to  fill  the  receptacle  that  is  handed 
in  by  some  neighbor,  usually  an  urchin  or  a  disheveled 
little  girl  barely  tall  enough  to  peer  in  at  the  waist-high 
opening,  and  thrusts  it  out  again  as  she  drops  another 
handful  of  copper  coins  into  her  capacious  wallet. 

They  are  always  named  in  huge  letters  on  the  street 
facade,  these  Bavarian  Gasihauser :  "Zum  Roihen  Hahn" 
("To  the  Red  Rooster"),  "ZumGrauen  Ross"  ("To  the 
Gray  Steed"),  "To  the  Golden  Star,"  "To  the  Black  Bear," 
"To  the  Golden  Angel,"  "To  the  Blue  Grapes,"  "To  the 
White  Swan,"  "To  the  Post,"  and  so  on  through  all  the 
colors  of  the  animal,  vegetable,  and  heavenly  kingdom. 
Whether  in  reference  to  the  good  old  days  when  Bavaria's 
beer  was  more  elevating  in  its  strength,  or  merely  an  evidence 

283 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

of  the  mixture  of  the  poetic  and  the  religious  in  the  native 
character,  one  of  the  favorite  names  is  "To  the  Ladder  of 
Heaven." 

In  the  evening  the  interior  scene  changes  somewhat. 
The  laundress  has  become  a  serving-maid,  the  man  of  the 
house  has  returned  from  his  fields  and  joins  his  waddling 
spouse  in  carrying  foaming  mugs  from  spigots  to  trap-door 
or  to  tables,  crowded  now  with  muscular,  sun-browned 
peasants  languid  from  the  labors  of  the  day.  Then  is  the 
time  that  a  rare  traveling  guest  may  ask  to  be  shown  to 
one  of  the  clean  and  simple  little  chambers  above.  The 
wise  man  will  always  seek  one  of  these  inns  of  the  olden 
days  in  which  to  spend  the  night,  even  in  cities  large  enough 
to  boast  more  presumptuous  quarters.  The  establishment 
announcing  itself  as  a  "Hotel"  is  certain  to  be  several 
times  more  expensive,  often  less  clean  and  comfortable, 
superior  only  in  outward  show,  and  always  far  less  home- 
like than  the  modest  Gasthaus. 

It  may  have  been  imagination,  but  I  fancied  I  saw  a 
considerable  variation  in  types  in  different  villages.  In 
some  almost  every  inhabitant  seemed  broad-shouldered  and 
brawny;  in  others  the  under-sized  prevailed.  This  particu- 
lar hamlet  in  which  the  police-soldier  and  I  took  our  fare- 
well glass  appeared  to  be  the  gathering-place  of  dwarfs. 
At  any  rate,  a  majority  of  those  I  caught  sight  of  could 
have  walked  under  my  outstretched  arm.  It  may  be  that 
the  war  had  carried  off  the  full-grown,  or  they  may  have  been 
away  tilling  the  fields.  The  head  of  the  inn  family,  aged 
sixty  or  more,  was  as  exact  a  copy  of  the  gnomes  whom  Rip 
van  Winkle  found  playing  ninepins  as  the  most  experienced 
stage  manager  could  have  chosen  and  costumed.  Hunched 
back,  hooked  nose,  short  legs,  long,  tasseled,  woolen  knit 
cap,  whimsical  smile  and  all,  he  was  the  exact  picture  of 
those  play-people  of  our  childhood  fairy-books.  Indeed, 
he  went  them  one  better,  for  the  long  vest  that  covered  his 

284 


INNS  AND  BYWAYS 

unnatural  expanse  of  chest  gleamed  with  a  score  of  buttons 
fashioned  from  silver  coins  of  centuries  ago,  of  the  size  of 
half-dollars.  He  sold  me  an  extra  one,  at  the  instigation  of 
my  companion,  for  the  appalling  price  of  two  marks!  It 
proved  to  date  back  to  the  days  when  Spain  held  chief 
sway  over  the  continent  of  Europe.  His  wife  was  his 
companion  even  in  appearance  and  suggested  some  medieval 
gargoyle  as  she  paddled  in  upon  us,  clutching  a  froth-topped 
stone  mug  in  either  dwarfish  hand.  She  had  the  fairy-tale 
kindness  of  heart,  too,  for  when  my  companion  suggested 
that  his  thirst  was  no  greater  than  his  hunger  she  duck-footed 
noiselessly  away  and  returned  with  a  generous  wedge  of  her 
own  bread.  It  was  distinctly  brown  and  would  not  have 
struck  the  casual  American  observer  as  a  delicacy,  but  the 
Nurnberger  fell  upon  it  with  a  smacking  of  the  lips  and  a 
joyful :  " Na!  Das  ist  Bauernbrod — genuine  peasant's  bread. 
You  don't  get  that  in  the  cities,  na!" 

He  took  his  final  leave  at  the  top  of  the  rise  beyond  the 
village,  deploring  the  fact  that  he  could  not  continue  with 
me  to  Berlin  and  imploring  me  to  come  again  some  other 
year  when  we  could  tramp  the  Bavarian  hills  together. 
When  I  turned  and  looked  back,  nearly  a  half-mile  beyond, 
he  stood  in  the  selfsame  spot,  and  he  snatched  off  his  red- 
banded  fatigue  cap  and  waved  it  half  gaily,  half  sadly 
after  me. 

Miles  ahead,  over  a  mountainous  ridge  shaded  by  a  cool 
and  murmuring  evergreen  forest,  I  descended  through  the 
fields  toward  Beilngries,  a  reddish  patch  on  the  landscape 
ahead.  A  glass-clear  brook  that  was  almost  a  river  hurried 
away  across  the  meadow.  I  shed  my  clothes  and  plunged 
into  it.  A  thin  man  was  wandering  along  its  grassy  bank 
like  a  poet  hunting  inspiration  or  a  victim  of  misfortune 
seeking  solace  for  his  tortured  spirit.  I  overtook  him  soon 
after  I  had  dressed.  His  garb  was  not  that  of  a  Bavarian 
villager;  his  manner  and  his  speech  suggested  a  Prussian, 

285 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

or  at  least  a  man  from  the  north.  I  expected  him  to  show 
more  curiosity  at  sight  of  a  wandering  stranger  than  had  the 
simple  countrymen  of  the  region.  When  I  accosted  him 
he  asked  if  the  water  was  cold  and  lapsed  into  silence.  I 
made  a  casual  reference  to  my  walk  from  Munich.  In 
any  other  country  the  mere  recital  of  that  distance  on  foot 
would  have  aroused  astonishment.  He  said  he  had  himself 
been  fond  of  walking  in  his  younger  days.  I  implied  in  a 
conversational  footnote  that  I  was  bound  for  Berlin.  He 
assured  me  the  trip  would  take  me  through  some  pleasant 
scenery.  I  emphasized  my  accent  until  a  man  of  his  class 
must  have  recognized  that  I  was  a  foreigner.  He  remarked 
that  these  days  were  sad  days  for  Germany.  I  worked 
carefully  up  to  the  announcement,  in  the  most  dramatic 
manner  I  could  command,  that  I  was  an  American  recently 
discharged  from  the  army.  He  hoped  I  would  carry  home  a 
pleasant  impression  of  German  landscapes,  even  if  I  did 
not  find  the  country  what  it  had  once  been  in  other  respects. 
As  we  parted  at  the  edge  of  the  town  he  deplored  the 
scarcity  and  high  price  of  food,  shook  hands  limply,  and 
wished  me  a  successful  journey.  In  other  words,  there  was 
no  means  of  arousing  his  interest,  to  say  nothing  of  surprise 
or  resentment,  that  the  citizen  of  a  country  with  which  his 
own  was  still  at  war  should  be  wandering  freely  with  kodak 
and  note-book  through  his  Fatherland.  His  attitude  was 
that  of  the  vast  majority  of  Germans  I  met  on  my  journey, 
and  to  this  day  I  have  not  ceased  to  wonder  why  their  at- 
titude should  have  been  so  indifferent.  Had  the  whole 
country  been  starved  out  of  the  aggressive,  suspicious  man- 
ner of  the  Kaiser  days,  or  was  there  truth  in  the  assertion 
that  they  had  always  considered  strangers  honored  guests 
and  treated  them  as  such  ?  More  likely  the  form  of  govern- 
ment under  which  they  had  so  long  lived  had  left  the  in- 
dividual German  the  impression  that  personally  it  was  no 
affair  of  his,  that  it  was  up  to  the  officials  who  had  appointed 

286 


INNS  AND  BYWAYS 

themselves  over  him  to  attend  to  such  matters,  while  the 
government  itself  had  grown  so  weak  and  disjointed  that 
it  took  no  cognizance  of  wandering  strangers. 

Whatever  else  may  be  said  of  them,  the  Germans  cer- 
tainly are  a  hard-working,  diligent  people,  even  in  the  midst 
of  calamities.  Boys  of  barely  fourteen  followed  the  plow 
from  dawn  to  dark  of  these  long  northern  summer  days. 
Laborers  toiled  steadily  at  road-mending,  at  keeping  in 
repair  the  material  things  the  Kaiser  regime  had  left  them, 
as  ambitiously  as  if  the  thought  had  never  occurred  to 
them  that  all  this  labor  might  in  the  end  prove  of  advantage 
only  to  their  enemies.  Except  that  the  letters  "P.  G." 
or  "P.  W. "  were  not  painted  on  their  garments,  there  was 
nothing  to  distinguish  these  gangs  of  workmen  in  fields 
and  along  the  roads  from  the  prisoners  of  war  one  had 
grown  so  accustomed  to  see  at  similar  tasks  in  France. 
They  wore  the  same  patched  and  discolored  field  gray, 
the  same  weather-faded  fatigue  caps.  How  those  red- 
banded  caps  had  permeated  into  the  utmost  corners  of 
the  land! 

Between  Beilngries  and  Bershing,  two  attractive  towns 
with  more  than  their  share  of  food  and  comfort  in  the  Ger- 
many of  armistice  days,  I  left  the  highway  for  the  towpath 
of  the  once  famous  Ludwig  Canal  that  parallels  it.  To  all 
appearances  this  had  long  since  been  abandoned  as  a  means 
of  transportation.  Nowhere  in  the  many  miles  I  followed  it 
did  I  come  upon  a  canal-boat,  though  its  many  locks  were 
still  in  working  order  and  the  lock- tenders'  dwellings  still 
inhabited.  The  disappearance  of  canal-boats  may  have 
been  merely  temporary,  as  was  that  of  automobiles,  of  which 
I  remember  seeing  only  three  during  all  my  tramp  in  Ger- 
many, except  those  in  the  military  service. 

For  a  long  time  I  trod  the  carpet-like  towpath  without 
meeting  or  overtaking  any  fellow-traveler.  It  was  as  if  I 
had  discovered  some  unknown  and  perfect  route  of  my  own. 

287 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

The  mirror  surface  of  the  canal  beside  me  pictured  my 
movements  far  more  perfectly  than  any  cinema  film,  repro- 
ducing every  slightest  tint  and  color.  Now  and  again  I 
halted  to  stretch  out  on  the  grassy  slope  at  the  edge  of  the 
water,  in  the  all-bathing  sunshine.  Snow-white  cherry- 
trees  were  slowly,  regretfully  shedding  their  blossoms, 
flecking  the  ground  and  here  and  there  the  edge  of  the 
canal  with  their  cast-off  petals.  Bright-pink  apple-trees, 
just  coming  into  full  bloom,  were  humming  with  myriad 
bees.  A  few  birds  sang  gaily,  yet  a  bit  drowsily,  falling 
wholly  silent  now  and  then,  as  if  awed  by  nature's  loveli- 
ness. A  weather-browned  woman,  her  head  covered  with  a 
clean  white  kerchief  with  strands  of  apple-blossom  pink 
in  it,  knelt  at  the  edge  of  the  waterway  a  bit  farther  on, 
cutting  the  long  grass  with  a  little  curved  sickle,  her  every 
motion,  too,  caught  by  the  mirroring  canal.  Along  the 
highway  below  tramped  others  of  her  species,  bearing  to 
town  on  their  backs  the  green  fodder  similarly  gathered, 
in  long  cone-shaped  baskets  or  wrapped  in  a  large  cloth. 
One  had  heaped  her  basket  high  with  bright-yellow  mustard, 
splashing  the  whitish  roadway  as  with  a  splotch  of  paint. 
Vehicles  there  were  none,  except  the  little  handcarts  drawn 
by  barefoot  women  or  children,  and  now  and  then  a  man 
sometimes  similarly  unshod.  Oxen  reddish  against  green 
meadows  or  whitish  against  the  red  soil  were  standing  idle, 
knee-deep  in  grass  or  slowly  plowing  the  gently  rolling  fields. 
Farther  off,  clumps  of  cattle  ranging  from  dark  brown  to 
faint  yellow  speckled  the  rounded  hillocks.  Fields  white 
with  daisies,  yellow  with  buttercups,  lilac  with  some  other 
species  of  small  flower,  vied  with  one  another  in  beautifying 
the  more  distant  landscape.  Still  farther  off,  the  world 
was  mottled  with  clumps  of  forest,  in  which  mingled  the 
black  evergreen  of  perennial  foliage  with  the  light  green 
of  new  leaves.  An  owl  or  some  member  of  his  family  hooted 
contentedly  from  the  nearest  woods.  Modest  little  houses, 

288 


INNS  AND   BYWAYS 

with  sharp,  very-old-red  roofs  and  whitewashed  walls 
dulled  by  years  of  weather,  stood  in  clusters  of  varying  size 
on  the  sun-flooded  hillsides.  Nothing  in  the  velvety, 
gentle  scene,  so  different  from  the  surly  landscape  of  factory 
districts,  suggested  war,  except  now  and  again  the  red- 
banded  caps  of  the  men.  The  more  wonder  came  upon 
me  that  these  slow,  simple  country  people  with  their  never- 
failing  greetings  and  their  entire  lack  of  warlike  manner 
could  have  formed  a  part  of  the  most  militaristic  nation  in 
history. 


XIV 

"FOOD  WEASELS" 

FOR  some  days  past  every  person  I  met  along  the  way, 
young  or  old,  had  bidden  me  good  day  with  the  all- 
embracing  '  'Scoot' ' .  I  had  taken  this  at  first  to  be  an  abbrevia- 
tion of  "Es  ist  gut,'1  until  an  innkeeper  had  explained  it  as 
a  shortening  of  the  medieval  "Gruss  Gott"  ("May  God's 
greeting  go  with  you").  In  mid-afternoon  of  this  Saturday 
the  custom  suddenly  ceased,  as  did  the  solitude  of  the  tow- 
path.  A  group  of  men  and  women,  bearing  rucksacks, 
baskets,  valises,  and  all  manner  of  receptacles,  appeared 
from  under  the  flowery  foliage  ahead  and  marched  past  me 
at  a  more  aggressive  pace  than  that  of  the  country  people. 
Their  garb,  their  manner,  somewhat  sour  and  unfriendly, 
particularly  the  absence  of  any  form  of  greeting,  dis- 
tinguished them  from  the  villagers  of  the  region.  More 
and  more  groups  appeared,  some  numbering  a  full  dozen, 
following  one  another  so  closely  as  to  form  an  almost  con- 
tinual procession.  Some  marched  on  the  farther  bank 
of  the  canal,  as  if  our  own  had  become  too  crowded  with 
traffic  for  comfort,  all  hurrying  by  me  into  the  south,  with 
set,  perspiring  faces.  I  took  them  to  be  residents  of  the 
larger  towns  beyond,  returning  from  the  end  of  a  railway 
spur  ahead  with  purchases  from  the  Saturday-morning  mar- 
ket at  Nurnberg.  It  was  some  time  before  I  discovered  that 
quite  the  opposite  was  the  case. 

They  were  "hamsterers,"  city  people  setting  out  to  scour 

290 


"FOOD  WEASELS" 

the  country  for  food.  "Hamster"  is  a  German  word  for 
an  animal  of  the  weasel  family,  which  squirms  in  and  out 
through  every  possible  opening  in  quest  of  nourishment. 
During  the  war  it  came  to  be  the  popular  designation  of 
those  who  seek  to  augment  their  scanty  ticket-limited 
rations  by  canvassing  among  the  peasants,  until  the  term 
in  all  its  forms,  as  noun,  verb,  adjective,  has  become  a 
universally  recognized  bit  of  the  language.  Women  with 
time  to  spare,  children  free  from  school,  go  "hamstering" 
any  day  of  the  week.  But  Saturday  afternoon  and  Sunday, 
when  the  masses  are  relieved  of  their  labors,  is  the  time  of 
a  general  exodus  from  every  city  in  Germany.  There  is 
not  a  peasant  in  the  land,  I  have  been  assured,  who  has  not 
been  regularly  "hamstered"  during  the  past  two  years.  In 
their  feverish  quest  the  famished  human  weasels  cross  and 
crisscross  their  lines  through  all  the  Empire.  "Hamsterers" 
hurrying  north  or  east  in  the  hope  of  discovering  unfished 
waters  pass  "hamsterers"  racing  south  or  west  bound  on  the 
same  chiefly  vain  errand.  Another  difficulty  adds  to  their 
misfortunes,  however,  and  limits  the  majority  to  their  own 
section  of  the  country.  It  is  not  the  cost  of  transportation, 
except  in  the  case  of  those  at  the  lowest  financial  ebb,  for 
fourth-class  fare  is  more  than  cheap  and  includes  all  the 
baggage  the  traveler  can  lug  with  him.  But  any  journey 
of  more  than  twenty-five  kilometers  requires  the  permission 
of  the  local  authorities.  Without  their  Ausweis  the  rail- 
ways will  not  sell  tickets  to  stations  beyond  that  distance. 
Hence  the  custom  is  to  ride  as  far  into  the  country  as  pos- 
sible, make  a  wide  circle  on  foot,  or  sometimes  on  a  bicycle, 
during  the  Sunday  following,  "hamstering"  as  one  goes,  and 
fetch  up  at  the  station  again  in  time  for  the  last  train  to 
the  city.  In  consequence  the  regions  within  the  attainable 
distance  around  large  cities  are  so  thoroughly  "fished  out" 
that  the  peasants  receive  new  callers  with  sullen  silence. 
I  had  been  conscious  of  a  sourness  in  the  greetings  of  the 

20  291 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

country  people  all  that  Saturday,  quite  distinct  from  their 
cheery  friendliness  of  the  days  before.  Now  it  was  ex- 
plained. They  had  taken  me  f or  a  "  hamsterer ' '  with  a  knap- 
sack full  of  the  food  their  region  could  so  ill  spare.  Not 
that  any  of  them,  probably,  was  suffering  from  hunger. 
But  man  is  a  selfish  creature.  He  resents  another's  acquisi- 
tion of  anything  which  may  ever  by  any  chance  be  of  use 
to  him.  Particularly  "der  Deutsche  Bauer  (the  German 
peasant),"  as  a  "hamsterer"  with  whom  I  fell  in  later  put  it, 
"is  never  an  idealist.  He  believes  in  looking  out  for  him- 
self first  and  foremost" — which  characteristic,  by  the  way, 
is  not  confined  to  his  class  in  Germany,  nor  indeed  to  any 
land.  "War,  patriotism,  Fatherland  have  no  place  in  his 
heart  when  they  clash  with  the  interests  of  his  purse,"  my 
informant  went  on.  "Hence  he  has  taken  full  advantage 
of  the  misery  of  others,  using  the  keen  competition  to  boost 
his  prices  far  beyond  all  reason." 

Many  a  labor-weary  workman  of  the  cities,  with  a  half- 
dozen  mouths  to  fill,  many  a  tired,  emaciated  woman,  tramps 
the  byways  of  Germany  all  Sunday  long,  halting  at  a 
score  or  two  of  farm-houses,  dragging  aching  legs  homeward 
late  at  night,  with  only  three  or  four  eggs,  a  few  potatoes, 
and  now  and  then  a  half-pound  of  butter  to  show  for  the 
exertion.  Sometimes  other  food-seekers  have  completely 
annihilated  the  peasant's  stock.  Sometimes  he  has  only 
enough  for  his  own  needs.  Often  his  prices  are  so  high  that 
the  "hamsterer"  cannot  reach  them — the  Bauer  knows  by 
years  of  experience  now  that  if  he  bides  his  time  some  one 
to  whom  price  is  a  minor  detail  will  appear,  perhaps  the 
agents  of  the  rich  man's  hotels  and  restaurants  of  Berlin 
and  the  larger  cities.  Frequently  he  is  of  a  miserly  dis- 
position, and  hoards  his  produce  against  an  imagined  day 
of  complete  famine,  or  in  the  hope  that  the  unreasonable 
prices  will  become  even  more  unreasonable.  There  are 
laws  against  "hamstering,"  as  there  are  against  selling 

292 


"FOOD  WEASELS" 

foodstuffs  at  more  than  the  established  price.  Now  and 
again  the  weary  urban  dweller  who  has  tramped  the  country- 
side all  day  sees  himself  held  up  by  a  gendarme  and  despoiled 
of  all  his  meager  gleanings.  But  the  peasant,  for  some  reason, 
is  seldom  molested  in  his  profiteering. 

The  northern  Bavarian  complains  that  the  people  of 
Saxony  outbid  him  among  his  own  villages;  the  Saxon 
accuses  the  iron-fisted  Prussian  of  descending  upon  his 
fields  and  carrying  off  the  food  so  badly  needed  at  home. 
For  those  with  influence  have  little  difficulty  in  reaching 
beyond  the  legal  twenty-five  kilometer  limit.  The  result 
is  that  foodstuffs  on  which  the  government  has  set  a  maxi- 
mum price  often  never  reach  the  market,  but  are  gathered 
on  the  spot  at  prices  several  times  higher  than  the  law 
sanctions. 

"You  see  that  farm  over  there?"  asked  a  food-canvasser 
with  whom  I  walked  an  hour  or  more  one  Sunday.  "I 
stopped  there  and  tried  to  buy  butter.  'We  haven't  an 
ounce  of  butter  to  our  names,'  said  the  woman.  'Ah,' 
said  I,  just  to  see  if  I  could  not  catch  her  in  a  lie,  'but  I  pay 
as  high  as  twenty  marks  a  pound.'  'In  that  case,'  said  the 
Unverschamte,  'I  can  let  you  have  any  amount  you  want 
up  to  thirty  pounds.'  I  could  not  really  pay  that  price, 
of  course,  being  a  poor  man,  working  hard  for  nine  marks 
a  day.  But  when  I  told  her  I  would  report  her  to  the 
police  she  laughed  in  my  face  and  slammed  the  door." 

It  was  easy  to  understand  now  why  so  many  of  those  I 
had  interviewed  in  my  official  capacity  at  Coblenz  had 
expressed  the  opinion  that  sooner  or  later  the  poor  of  the 
cities  would  descend  upon  the  peasants  in  bands  and  rob 
them  of  all  their  hoardings.  The  countrymen  themselves 
showed  that  fear  of  this  now  and  then  gnawed  at  their 
souls,  not  so  much  by  their  speech  as  by  their  circumspect 
actions.  The  sight  of  these  swarms  of  "hamsterers" 
descended  from  the  north  like  locusts  from  the  desert  gave 

293 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

the  prophecy  new  meaning.  It  would  have  been  so  easy 
for  a  few  groups  of  them  to  join  together  and  wreak 
the  vengeance  of  their  class  on  the  "hard-hearted"  peasants. 
Had  they  been  of  a  less  orderly,  lifelong-disciplined  race 
they  might  have  thus  run  amuck  months  before.  Instead, 
they  plodded  on  through  all  the  hardships  circumstances 
had  woven  for  them,  with  that  all-suffering,  uncomplaining 
sort  of  fatalism  with  which  the  war  seems  to  have  inoculated 
the  German  soul. 

Thus  far  the  question  of  lodging  had  always  been  simple. 
I  had  only  to  pick  out  a  village  ahead  on  the  map  and  put 
up  at  its  chief  Gasthaus.  But  Saturday  night  and  the 
"hamsterers"  gave  the  situation  a  new  twist.  With  a 
leisurely  twenty  miles  behind  me  I  turned  aside  to  the 
pleasing  little  hamlet  of  Muhlhausen,  quite  certain  I  had 
reached  the  end  of  that  day's  journey.  But  the  Gastzimmer 
of  the  chief  inn  presented  an  astonishing  afternoon  sight. 
Its  every  table  was  densely  surrounded  by  dust-streaked 
men,  women,  and  older  children,  their  rucksacks  and  straw 
coffers  strewn  about  the  floor.  Instead  of  the  serene, 
leisurely-diligent  matron  whom  I  expected  to  greet  my 
entrance  with  a  welcoming  "Scoot"  I  found  a  sharp- tongued, 
harassed  female  vainly  striving  to  silence  the  constant 
refrain  of,  "Hier!  Glas  Bier,  bitte!"  Far  from  having  a  mug 
set  before  me  almost  at  the  instant  I  took  my  seat,  I  was 
forced  to  remain  standing,  and  it  was  several  minutes  before 
I  could  catch  her  attention  long  enough  to  request  "das 
beste  Zimmer."  "Room!"  she  snapped,  in  a  tone  I  had 
never  dreamed  a  Bavarian  landlady  could  muster;  "over- 
filled hours  ago ! "  Incredible !  I  had  scarcely  seen  a  fellow- 
guest  for  the  night  during  all  my  tramp  from  Munich. 
Well,  I  would  enjoy  one  of  those  good  Gasthaus  suppers 
and  find  lodging  in  another  public-house  at  my  leisure. 
Again  I  had  reckoned  without  my  hostess.  When  I  suc- 
ceeded in  once  more  catching  the  attention  of  the  distracted 

294 


"FOOD  WEASELS" 

matron,  she  flung  at  me  over  a  shoulder:  "Not  a  bite! 
'Hamsterers'  have  eaten  every  crumb  in  town." 

It  was  only  too  true.  The  other  inn  of  Muhlhausen  had 
been  as  thoroughly  raided.  Moreover,  its  beds  also  were 
already  "overfilled."  The  seemingly  impossible  had  come 
to  pass — my  chosen  village  not  only  would  not  shelter  me 
for  the  night;  it  would  not  even  assuage  my  gnawing  hunger 
before  driving  me  forth  into  the  wide,  inhospitable  world 
beyond.  Truly  war  has  its  infernal  details! 

As  always  happens  in  such  cases,  the  next  town  was  at 
least  twice  as  far  away  as  the  average  distance  between  its 
neighbors.  Fortunately  an  isolated  little  "beer-arbor" 
a  few  miles  farther  on  had  laid  in  a  Saturday  stock.  The 
Wirt  not  only  served  me  bread,  but  a  generous  cut  of  some 
mysterious  species  of  sausage,  without  so  much  as  batting 
an  eyelid  at  my  presumptuous  request.  Weary,  dusty 
"hamsterers"  of  both  sexes  and  all  ages  were  enjoying  his 
Spartan  hospitality  also,  their  scanty  fare  contrasting  sug- 
gestively with  the  great  slabs  of  home-smoked  cold  ham,  the 
hard-boiled  eggs,  Bauernbrod  and  butter  with  which  a  group 
of  plump,  taciturn  peasant  youths  and  girls  gorged  them- 
selves at  another  mug-decorated  table  with  the  surreptitious 
demeanor  of  yeggmen  enjoying  their  ill-gotten  winnings. 
The  stragglers  of  the  human  weasel  army  punctuated  the 
highway  for  a  few  kilometers  farther.  Some  were  war 
victims,  stumping  past  on  crippled  legs;  some  were  so 
gaunt -featured  and  thin  that  one  wondered  how  they  had 
succeeded  in  entering  the  race  at  all.  The  last  one  of  the 
day  was  a  woman  past  middle  age,  mountainous  of  form, 
her  broad  expanse  of  ruddy  face  streaked  with  dust  and 
perspiration,  who  sat  weightily  on  a  roadside  boulder, 
munching  the  remnants  of  a  black-bread-and-smoked-pork 
lunch  and  gazing  despairingly  into  the  highway  vista  down 
•wiich  her  more  nimble-legged  competitors  had  long  since 
vanished. 

295 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

In  the  end  I  was  glad  Muhlhausen  had  repulsed  me,  for  I 
had  a  most  delightful  walk  from  sunset  into  dusk  in  forest- 
flanked  solitude  along  the  Ludwig  Canal,  with  a  swim  in 
reflected  moonshine  to  top  it  off.  Darkness  had  completely 
fallen  on  the  long  summer  day  when  I  reached  Neumarkt 
with  thirty  miles  behind  me.  Under  ordinary  circumstances 
I  should  have  had  a  large  choice  of  lodgings;  the  place  was 
important  enough  to  call  itself  a  city  and  its  broad  main 
street  was  lined  by  a  continuous  procession  of  peak-gabled 
Gasthduser.  But  it,  too,  was  flooded  with  "hamsterers." 
They  packed  every  beer-dispensing  "guest-room";  they 
crowded  every  public  lodging,  awaiting  the  dawn  of  Sunday 
to  charge  forth  in  all  directions  upon  the  surrounding 
country-side.  I  made  the  circuit  of  its  cobble-paved  center 
four  times,  suffering  a  score  of  scornful  rebuffs  before  I 
found  a  man  who  admitted  vaguely  that  he  might  be  able 
to  shelter  me  for  the  night. 

He  was  another  of  those  curious  fairy-tale  dwarfs  one 
finds  tucked  away  in  the  corners  of  Bavaria,  and  his  eyrie 
befitted  his  personal  appearance.  It  was  a  disjointed 
little  den  filled  with  the  medieval  paraphernalia — and  in- 
cidentally with  much  of  the  unsavoriness — that  had  col- 
lected there  during  its  several  centuries  of  existence.  One 
stooped  to  enter  the  beer-hall,  and  rubbed  one's  eyes  for  the 
astonishment  of  being  suddenly  carried  back  to  the  Middle 
Ages — as  well  as  from  the  acrid  clouds  of  smoke  that  sud- 
denly assailed  them ;  one  all  but  crawled  on  hands  and  knees 
to  reach  the  stoop-shouldered,  dark  cubbyholes  miscalled 
sleeping-chambers  above.  Indeed,  the  establishment  did 
not  presume  to  pose  as  a  Gasihaus;  it  contented  itself  with 
the  more  modest  title  of  Gastwirtschaft. 

But  there  were  more  than  mere  physical  difficulties  in 
gaining  admittance  to  the  so-called  lodgings  under  the 
eaves.  The  dwarfish  Wirt  had  first  to  be  satisfied  that  I 
was  a  paying  guest.  When  I  asked  to  be  shown  at  once 

296 


"FOOD  WEASELS" 

to  my  quarters,  he  gasped,  protestingly,  "Aber  trinken  Sie 
kein  Glas  Bier!"  I  would  indeed,  and  with  it  I  would  eat 
a  substantial  supper,  if  he  could  furnish  one.  That  he 
could,  and  did.  How  he  had  gathered  so  many  of  the  food- 
stuffs which  most  Germans  strive  for  in  vain,  including 
such  delicacies  as  eggs,  veal,  and  butter,  is  no  business  of 
mine.  My  chief  interest  just  then  was  to  welcome  the  heap- 
ing plates  which  his  gnomish  urchins  brought  me  from  the 
cavernous  hole  of  a  kitchen  out  of  which  peered  now  and  then 
the  witchlike  face  of  his  wife-cook.  The  same  impish  little 
brats  pattered  about  in  their  bare  feet  among  the  guests, 
serving  them  beer  as  often  as  a  mug  was  emptied  and 
listening  with  grinning  faces  to  the  sometimes  obscene 
anecdotes  with  which  a  few  of  them  assailed  the  rafters. 
Most  of  the  clients  that  evening  were  of  the  respectable 
class,  being  "hamstering"  men  and  wives  forced  to  put  up 
with  whatever  circumstances  required  of  them,  but  they 
were  in  striking  contrast  to  the  disreputable  habitues  of  what 
was  evidently  Neumarkt's  least  gentlemanly  establishment. 
In  all  the  wine-soaked  uproar  of  the  evening  there  was  but 
a  single  reference  to  what  one  fancied  would  have  been  any 
German's  chief  interest  in  those  particular  days.  A  maudlin 
braggart  made  a  casual,  parenthetical  boast  of  what  he 
"would  do  to  the  cursed  Allies  if  he  ever  caught  them 
again."  The  habitual  guests  applauded  drunkenly,  the 
transient  ones  preserved  the  same  enduring  silence  they  had 
displayed  all  the  evening,  the  braggart  lurched  on  along 
some  wholly  irrelevant  theme,  and  the  misshapen  host 
continued  serving  his  beer  and  pocketing  pewter  coins  and 
"shin-plasters"  with  a  mumble  and  a  grimace  that  said  as 
plainly  as  words,  "Veil,  vhat  do  I  care  vhat  happens  to  the 
country  if  I  can  still  do  a  paying  pusiness?"  But  then,  he 
was  of  the  race  that  has  often  been  accused  of  having  no 
patriotism  for  anything  beyond  its  own  purse,  whatever 
country  it  inhabits. 

297 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

When  we  had  paid  rather  reasonable  bills  for  the  forbidden 
fruits  that  had  been  set  before  us,  the  Wirt  lighted  what 
seemed  to  be  a  straw  stuffed  with  grease  and  conducted 
me  and  three  "hamstering"  workmen  from  Nurnberg  up 
a  low,  twisting  passageway  to  a  garret  crowded  with  four 
nests  on  legs  which  he  dignified  with  the  name  of  beds. 
I  will  spare  the  tender-hearted  reader  any  detailed  descrip- 
tion of  our  chamber,  beyond  remarking  that  we  paid  eighty 
pfennigs  each  for  our  accommodations,  and  were  vastly 
overcharged  at  that.  It  was  the  only  "hardship"  of  my 
German  journey.  My  companions  compared  notes  for 
a  half-hour  or  more,  on  the  misfortunes  and  possibilities  of 
their  war-time  avocation,  each  taking  care  not  to  give  the 
others  any  inkling  of  what  corner  of  the  landscape  he  hoped 
most  successfully  to  "hamster"  on  the  morrow,  and  by  mid- 
night the  overpopulated  rendezvous  of  Neumarkt  had 
sunk  into  its  brief  "pre-hamstering"  slumber. 

Being  ahead  of  my  schedule,  and  moreover  the  day  being 
Sunday,  I  did  not  loaf  away  until  nine  next  morning.  The 
main  highway  had  swung  westward  toward  Nurnberg. 
The  more  modest  country  road  I  followed  due  north  led 
over  a  gently  rolling  region  through  many  clumps  of  forest. 
Scattered  groups  of  peasants  returning  from  church  passed 
me  in  almost  continual  procession  during  the  noon  hour. 
The  older  women  stalked  uncomfortably  along  in  tight- 
fitting  black  gowns  that  resembled  the  styles  to  be  seen  in 
paintings  of  a  century  ago,  holding  their  outer  skirts  knee- 
high  and  showing  curiously  decorated  petticoats.  On  their 
heads  they  wore  closely  fitting  kerchiefs  of  silky  appearance, 
jet  black  in  color,  though  on  week-days  they  were  coiffed 
with  white  cotton.  Some  ostentated  light-colored  aprons 
and  pale-blue  embroidered  cloths  knotted  at  the  back  of  the 
neck  and  held  in  place  by  a  breastpin  in  the  form  of  a  crucifix 
or  other  religious  design.  In  one  hand  they  gripped  a 
prayer-book  and  in  the  other  an  amber  or  black  rosary. 

298 


"FOOD  WEASELS" 

The  boys  and  girls,  almost  without  exception,  carried  their 
heavy  hob-nailed  shoes  in  their  hands  and  slapped  along 
joyfully  in  their  bare  feet.  In  every  village  was  an  open- 
air  bowling-alley,  sometimes  half  hidden  behind  a  crude 
lattice-work  and  always  closely  connected  with  the  beer- 
dispensary,  in  which  the  younger  men  joined  in  their  weekly 
sport  as  soon  as  church  was  over.  Somewhere  within  sight 
of  them  hovered  the  grown  girls,  big  blond  German  Madchen 
with  their  often  pretty  faces  and  their  plowman's  arms, 
hands,  ankles,  and  feet,  dressed  in  their  gay,  light-colored 
Sunday  best. 

Huge  lilac-bushes  in  fullest  bloom  sweetened  the  constant 
breeze  with  their  perfume.  The  glassy  surface  of  the  canal 
still  glistened  in  the  near  distance  to  the  left;  a  cool,  clear 
stream  meandered  in  and  out  along  the  slight  valley  to  the 
right.  Countrymen  trundled  past  on  bicycles  that  still 
boasted  good  rubber  tires,  in  contrast  with  the  jolting 
substitutes  to  which  most  city  riders  had  been  reduced. 
A  few  of  the  returning  "hamsterers"  were  similarly  mounted, 
though  the  majority  trudged  mournfully  on  foot,  carrying 
bags  and  knapsacks  half  filled  with  vegetables,  chiefly 
potatoes,  with  live  geese,  ducks,  or  chickens.  One  youth 
pedaled  past  with  a  lamb  gazing  out  of  the  rucksack  on 
his  back  with  the  wondering  eyes  of  a  country  boy  taking 
his  first  journey.  When  I  overtook  him  on  the  next  long 
rise  the  rider  displayed  his  woolly  treasure  proudly,  at  the 
same  time  complaining  that  he  had  been  forced  to  pay 
"a  whole  seven  marks"  for  it.  As  I  turned  aside  for  a  dip 
in  the  inviting  stream,  the  Munich-Berlin  airplane  express 
hour  donned  by  overhead,  perhaps  a  thousand  meters  above, 
setting  a  bee-line  through  the  glorious  summer  sky  and 
contrasting  strangely  with  the  medieval  life  underfoot 
about  me. 

At  Gnadenberg,  beside  the  artistic  ruins  of  a  once  famous 
cloister  with  a  hillside  forest  vista,  an  inn  supplied  me  a 

299 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

generous  dinner,  with  luscious  young  roast  pork  as  the  chief 
ingredient.  The  traveler  in  Germany  during  the  armistice 
was  far  more  impressed  by  such  a  repast  than  by  mere 
ruins  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The  innkeeper  and  his  wife  had 
little  in  common  with  their  competitors  of  the  region. 
They  were  a  youthful  couple  from  Hamburg,  who  had 
adopted  this  almost  unprecedented  means  of  assuring 
themselves  the  livelihood  which  the  war  had  denied  them  at 
home.  Amid  the  distressing  Bavarian  dialect  with  which 
my  ears  had  been  assailed  since  my  arrival  in  Munich  their 
grammatical  German  speech  was  like  a  flash  of  light  in  a 
dark  corner. 

By  four  I  had  already  attained  the  parlor  suite  of  the 
principal  Gasthaus  of  Altdorf ,  my  three  huge  windows  look- 
ing out  upon  the  broad  main  street  of  a  truly  picturesque 
town.  Ancient  peaked  gables  cut  the  horizon  with  their 
saw  edge  on  every  hand.  The  entire  fagade  of  the  aged 
church  that  boomed  the  quarter-hours  across  the  way  was 
shaded  by  a  mighty  tree  that  looked  like  a  giant  green 
haystack.  A  dozen  other  clocks,  in  towers  or  scattered 
about  the  inn,  loudly  questioned  the  veracity  of  the  church- 
bells  and  of  one  another  at  as  frequent  intervals.  Time 
may  be  of  less  importance  to  the  Bavarian  than  to  some 
less  tranquil  people,  but  he  believes  in  marking  it  thoroughly. 
His  every  room  boasts  a  clock  or  two,  his  villages  resemble 
a  horlogerie  in  the  throes  of  anarchy,  with  every  timepiece 
loudly  expounding  its  own  personal  opinion,  until  the  entire 
twenty-four  hours  becomes  a  constant  uproar  of  conflicting 
theories,  like  the  hubbub  of  some  Bolshevik  assembly.  Most 
of  them  are  not  contented  with  single  statements,  but  insist 
on  repeating  their  quarter-hourly  misinformation.  The 
preoccupied  guest  or  the  uneasy  sleeper  refrains  with  diffi- 
culty from  shouting  at  some  insistent  timepiece  or  church- 
bell  : ' '  Yes,  you  said  that  a  moment  ago.  For  Heaven's  sake, 
don't  be  so  redundant!"  But  his  protest  would  be  sure  to 

300 


"FOOD  WEASELS" 

be  drowned  out  by  the  clangor  of  some  other  clock  vocifer- 
ously correcting  the  statements  of  its  competitors.  It  is 
always  a  quarter  to,  or  after,  something  or  other  according 
to  the  clocks  of  Bavaria.  The  wise  man  scorns  them  all 
and  takes  his  time  from  the  sun  or  his  appetite. 

Over  my  beer  I  fell  into  conversation  with  an  old  merchant 
from  Niirnberg  and  his  sister-in-law.  The  pair  were  the 
most  nearly  resentful  toward  America  of  any  persons  I 
met  in  Germany,  yet  not  so  much  so  but  that  we  passed 
a  most  agreeable  evening  together.  The  man  clung  dog- 
gedly to  a  theory  that  seemed  to  be  moribund  in  Germany 
that  America's  only  real  reason  for  entering  the  war  was 
to  protect  her  investments  in  the  Allied  cause.  The  woman 
had  been  a  hack  writer  on  sundry  subjects  for  a  half-cen- 
tury, and  a  frequent  contributor  to  German-language  papers 
in  America.  As  is  frequently  the  case  with  her  sex,  she  was 
far  more  bitter  and  decidedly  less  open-minded  toward 
her  country's  enemies  than  the  men.  Her  chief  complaint, 
however,  was  that  America's  entrance  into  the  war  had  cut 
her  off  from  her  most  lucrative  field,  and  her  principal 
anxiety  the  question  as  to  how  soon  she  would  again  be 
able  to  exchange  manuscripts  for  American  drafts.  She 
grew  almost  vociferous  in  demanding,  not  of  me,  but  of  her 
companion,  why  American  writers  were  permitted  to  roam 
at  large  in  Germany  while  the  two  countries  were  still  at 
war,  particularly  why  the  Allies  did  not  allow  the  same 
privileges  to  German  writers.  I  was  as  much  in  the  dark 
on  that  subject  as  she.  Her  companion,  however,  assured 
her  that  it  was  because  Germany  had  always  been  more 
frank  and  open-minded  than  her  enemies;  that  the  more 
freedom  allowed  enemy  correspondents  the  sooner  would 
the  world  come  to  realize  that  Germany's  cause  had  been 
the  more  just.  She  admitted  all  this,  adding  that  nowhere 
were  justice  and  enlightenment  so  fully  developed  as  in  her 
beloved  Fatherland,  but  she  rather  spoiled  the  assertion 

301 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

by  her  constant  amazement  that  I  dared  go  about  the  coun- 
try unarmed.  In  all  the  torrent  of  words  she  poured  forth 
one  outburst  still  stands  out  in  my  memory : 

"Fortunately,"  she  cried,  "Roosevelt  is  dead.  He  would 
have  made  it  even  harder  for  poor  Germany  than  Wilson 
has.  Why  should  that  man  have  joined  our  enemies,  too, 
after  we  had  treated  him  like  a  king  ?  His  daughter  accepted 
a  nice  wedding-present  from  our  Kaiser,  and  then  he  turned 
against  us!" 

One  sensed  the  curious  working  of  the  typical  German 
mind  in  that  remark.  The  Kaiser  had  given  a  friendly 
gift,  he  had  received  a  man  with  honor,  hence  anything  the 
Kaiser  chose  to  do  thereafter  should  have  met  with  that 
man's  unqualified  approval.  It  was  a  most  natural  con- 
clusion, from  the  German  point  of  view.  Did  not  the 
Kaiser  and  his  clan  rise  to  the  height  from  which  they  fell 
partly  by  the  judicious  distribution  of  "honors"  to  those 
who  might  otherwise  have  successfully  opposed  them, 
by  the  lavishing  of  badges  and  medals,  of  honorariums  and 
preferences,  of  iron  crosses  and  costly  baubles? 

A  young  man  at  an  adjacent  table  took  exception  to  some 
accusation  against  America  by  the  cantankerous  old  mer- 
chant, and  joined  in  the  conversation.  From  that  moment 
forth  I  was  not  once  called  upon  to  defend  my  country's 
actions;  our  new  companion  did  so  far  more  effectively 
than  I  could  possibly  have  done.  He  was  professor  of 
philosophy  in  the  ancient  University  of  Altdorf,  and  his 
power  of  viewing  a  question  from  both  sides,  with  absolute 
impartiality,  without  the  faintest  glow  of  personal  feeling, 
attained  the  realms  of  the  supernatural.  During  the  entire 
war  he  had  been  an  officer  at  the  front,  having  returned  to 
his  academic  duties  within  a  month  after  the  signing  of  the 
armistice.  As  women  are  frequently  more  rabid  than  men 
in  their  hatred  of  a  warring  enemy,  so  are  the  men  who  have 
taken  the  least  active  part  in  the  conflict  commonly  the 

302 


"FOOD  WEASELS" 

more  furious.  One  can  often  recognize  almost  at  a  glance 
the  real  soldier — not  the  parader  in  uniform  at  the  rear, 
but  him  who  has  seen  actual  warfare;  he  is  wiser  and  less 
fanatical,  he  is  more  apt  to  realize  that  his  enemy,  too, 
had  something  to  fight  for,  that  every  war  in  history  has 
had  some  right  on  both  sides. 

When  we  exchanged  names  I  found  that  the  professor 
was  more  familiar  than  I  with  a  tale  I  once  wrote  of  a  journey 
around  the  world,  republished  in  his  own  tongue.  The 
discovery  led  us  into  discussions  that  lasted  late  into  the 
evening.  In  the  morning  he  conducted  me  through  the 
venerable  seat  of  learning  to  which  he  was  attached.  It 
had  suffered  much  from  the  war,  not  merely  financially, 
but  in  the  loss  of  fully  two-thirds  of  its  faculty  and  students. 
Three-fourths  of  them  had  returned  now,  but  they  had 
not  brought  with  them  the  pre-war  atmosphere.  He 
detected  an  impatience  with  academic  pursuits,  a  super- 
ficiality that  had  never  before  been  known  in  German 
universities.  Particularly  the  youths  who  had  served  as 
officers  during  the  war  submitted  themselves  with  great 
difficulty  to  the  discipline  of  the  class-room.  The  chief 
"sight"  of  the  institution  was  an  underground  cell  in  which 
the  afterward  famous  Wallenstein  was  once  confined.  In 
his  youth  the  general  attended  the  university  for  a  year, 
the  last  one  of  the  sixteenth  century.  His  studies,  however, 
had  been  almost  entirely  confined  to  the  attractions  of  the 
Gasthduser  and  the  charms  of  the  fair  maidens  of  the  sur- 
rounding villages.  The  attempt  one  day  to  enliven  academic 
proceedings  with  an  alcoholic  exhilaration,  of  which  he  was 
not  even  the  legal  possessor  financially,  brought  him  to  the 
sobering  depths  of  the  iron-barred  cellar  and  eventually  to 
expulsion.  But  alas  for  diligence  and  sobriety!  While  the 
self-denying  grinds  of  his  day  have  sunk  centuries  deep  into 
oblivion,  the  name  of  Wallenstein  is  emblazoned  in  letters  a 
meter  high  across  the  fagade  of  the  steep-gabled  dwelling 

303 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

in  which  he  recuperated  during  the  useless  daylight  hours 
from  his  nightly  lucubrations. 

The  professor  pointed  out  to  me  a  byway  leading  due 
northward  over  the  green  hills.  Now  it  strode  joyfully 
across  broad  meadows  and  ripening  wheat-fields  about 
which  scampered  wild  rabbits  as  I  advanced ;  now  it  climbed 
deliberately  up  into  the  cathedral  depths  of  evergreen  forests 
that  stretched  away  for  hours  in  any  direction.  Bucolic 
little  hamlets  welcomed  me  as  often  as  thirst  suggested  the 
attractiveness  of  dropping  the  rucksack  from  my  shoulders 
to  the  bench  of  a  refreshing  country  inn.  I  had  struck  a 
Protestant  streak,  wedged  in  between  two  broad  Catholic 
regions.  It  may  have  been  but  a  trick  of  the  imagination, 
but  the  local  dialect  seemed  to  have  grown  more  German 
with  the  change.  Certainly  the  beer  was  different,  pale 
yellow  in  contrast  with  the  mahogany  brown  of  the  far 
heavier  brew  to  the  south.  Whether  or  not  it  was  due  to 
mere  chance  or  to  a  difference  in  taste,  the  two  types  of  the 
beverage  seemed  to  go  with  their  respective  form  of  Chris- 
tianity through  all  Bavaria.  But,  alas!  none  of  it  was  the 
beer  of  yesteryear.  On  the  walls  of  one  tiny  Gastzimmer 
hung  large  framed  portraits,  dauby  in  composition,  of  four 
youthful  soldiers.  The  shuffling  old  woman  who  served  me 
caught  my  questioning  glance  at  the  largest  of  them. 

"My  youngest,"  she  explained,  in  her  toothless  mumble. 
"He  has  been  missing  since  October,  1914.  Never  a  word. 
He,  over  there,  was  slaughtered  at  Verdun.  My  oldest,  he 
with  the  cap  of  an  Unteroffizier,  is  a  prisoner  in  France. 
They  will  never  let  him  come  back,  it  is  said.  The  other, 
in  the  smallest  picture,  is  working  in  the  fields  out  yonder, 
but  he  has  a  stiff  arm  and  he  cannot  do  much.  Pictures 
cost  so  now,  too;  we  had  to  get  a  smaller  one  each  year. 
My  man  was  in  it  also.  He  still  suffers  from  the  malady 
of  the  trenches.  He  spends  more  than  half  his  days  in  bed. 
War  is  schrecklich— frightful,"  she  concluded,  but  she  said  it  in 

304 


"FOOD  WEASELS" 

the  dull,  dispassionate  tone  in  which  she  might  have  deplored 
the  lack  of  rain  or  the  loss  of  a  part  of  her  herd.  Indeed, 
there  seemed  to  be  more  feeling  in  her  voice  as  she  added: 
"And  they  took  all  our  horses.  We  have  only  an  ox  left 
now,  and  the  cows." 

Descending  into  a  valley  beyond,  I  met  a  score  of  school- 
boys, of  about  fifteen,  each  with  a  knapsack  on  his  back, 
climbing  slowly  upward  into  the  forest.  They  crowded 
closely  around  a  middle-aged  man,  similarly  burdened, 
who  was  talking  as  he  walked  and  to  whom  the  boys  gave 
such  fixed  attention  that  they  did  not  so  much  as  glance 
at  me.  His  topic,  as  I  caught  from  the  few  words  I  heard, 
was  Roman  history,  on  which  he  was  discoursing  as  deliber- 
ately as  if  the  group  had  been  seated  in  their  stuffy  class- 
room in  the  village  below.  Yet  it  was  mid-morning  of  a 
Monday.  This  German  custom  of  excursion-lessons  might 
be  adopted  to  advantage  in  our  own  land;  were  it  not  that 
our  fondness  for  co-education  would  tend  to  distract  scholarly 
attention. 

Toward  noon  the  byways  descended  from  the  hills, 
became  a  highway,  and  turned  eastward  along  a  broad 
river  valley.  Hersbruck,  at  the  turning-point,  was  sur- 
rounded on  two  sides  by  railways,  with  all  their  attendant 
grime  and  clatter,  but  the  town  itself  was  as  peak-gabled 
and  cobble-paved,  as  Middle-Aged  in  appearance,  as  if 
modern  science  had  never  invaded  it.  The  population  left 
over  after  the  all-important  brewing  and  serving  of  beer 
had  been  accomplished  seemed  to  busy  itself  with  supply- 
ing the  peasants  of  the  neighboring  regions.  I  declined  the 
valley  road  and  climbed  again  into  the  hills  to  the  north. 
Their  first  flanks,  on  the  edge  of  the  town,  were  strewn  with 
impressive  villas,  obviously  new  and  strikingly  out  of  keep- 
ing with  the  modest  old  town  below.  They  reminded  one 
of  the  flashy,  rouge-lacquered  daughters  of  our  simple 
immigrants.  A  youth  in  blouse  and  field-gray  trousers, 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

who  was  setting  me  on  my  way,  smiled  faintly  and  quiz- 
zically when  I  called  attention  to  them. 

1 '  Rich  men  ? "  I  queried. 

"Yes,  indeed,"  he  answered,  with  something  curiously 
like  a  growl  in  his  voice. 

"What  do  they  do?"  I  went  on,  chiefly  to  make  con- 
versation. 

"Nothing,"  he  replied,  in  a  tone  that  suggested  the 
subject  was  distasteful. 

"Then  how  did  they  get  rich?"  I  persisted. 

"Wise  men,"  he  mumbled,  with  a  meaning  side  glance. 

"All  built  since  the  war?"  I  hazarded,  after  a  moment, 
gazing  again  along  the  snowy  hillside. 

He  nodded  silently,  with  something  faintly  like  a  wink, 
at  the  same  time  glancing  cautiously  upward,  as  if  he  feared 
the  ostentatious  villas  would  vent  their  influential  wrath 
upon  him  for  giving  their  questionable  pedigree  to  a  stranger. 

Farther  on,  along  a  soft-footed  country  road  that  undu- 
lated over  a  landscape  blooming  with  fruit-trees  and  immense 
lilac-bushes,  I  came  upon  a  youthful  shepherd  hobbling 
after  his  grazing  sheep  on  a  crude  wooden  leg  that  seemed 
to  have  been  fashioned  with  an  ax  from  the  trunk  of  a 
sapling.  I  attempted  to  rouse  him  to  a  recital  of  his  war 
experiences,  but  he  scowled  at  my  first  hint  and  preserved 
a  moody  silence.  A  much  older  man,  tending  his  fat  cattle 
a  mile  beyond,  was,  on  the  contrary,  eager  to  "fight  the  war 
over  again."  It  suggested  to  him  none  of  the  bitter  memo- 
ries that  assailed  the  one-legged  shepherd.  He  had  been 
too  old  to  serve,  and  his  two  sons,  cultivating  a  field  across 
the  way,  had  returned  in  full  health.  He  expressed  a  mild 
thankfulness  that  it  was  over,  however,  because  of  the 
restrictions  it  had  imposed  upon  the  peasants.  For  every 
cow  he  possessed  he  was  obliged  to  deliver  two  liters  of 
milk  a  day.  An  official  milk-gatherer  from  the  town  passed 
each  morning.  Any  cow  that  habitually  fell  below  the 

306 


"FOOD  WEASELS" 

standard  set  must  be  reported  ready  for  slaughter.  Un- 
productive hens  suffered  the  same  fate.  He  owned  ten 
Stuck  of  them,  a  hundred  and  fifty  in  all,  with  four  roosters 
to  keep  them  company,  and  was  forced  to  contribute  four 
hundred  and  fifty  eggs  a  week  to  the  town  larder.  At  good 
prices?  Oh  yes,  the  prices  were  not  bad — three  times  those 
of  before  the  war,  but  by  no  means  what  the  "hamsterers" 
would  gladly  pay.  Of  course,  he  smiled  contentedly,  there 
were  still  milk  and  eggs  left  over  for  his  own  use.  The  coun- 
try people  did  not  suffer  from  hunger.  They  could  not 
afford  to,  with  their  constant  hard  labor.  It  was  different 
with  the  city  folks,  who  put  in  short  hours  and  sat  down 
much  of  the  time.  He  had  heard  that  all  the  war  restric- 
tions would  be  over  in  August.  He  certainly  hoped  so,  for 
life  was  growing  very  tiresome  with  all  these  regulations. 

Every  one  of  his  half -hundred  cows  wore  about  its  neck 
a  broad  board,  decorated  in  colors  with  fantastic  figures, 
from  which  hung  a  large  bell.  Each  of  the  latter  was  dis- 
tinct in  timbre  and  all  of  fine  tone.  The  chimes  produced 
by  the  grazing  herd  was  a  real  music  that  the  breeze  wafted 
to  my  ears  until  I  had  passed  the  crest  of  the  next  hillock. 
How  so  much  metal  suitable  for  cannon-making  had  escaped 
the  Kaiser's  brass-gatherers  was  a  mystery  which  the  extraor- 
dinary influence  of  the  peasant  class  only  partly  explained. 

Beyond  the  medieval  ruin  of  Hohenstein,  which  had  served 
me  for  half  the  afternoon  as  a  lighthouse  does  the  mariner, 
the  narrow  road  led  gradually  downward  and  brought  me 
once  more  toward  sunset,  to  the  river  valley.  The  railway 
followed  the  stream  closely,  piercing  the  many  towering 
crags  with  its  tunnels.  But  the  broad  highroad  wound  in 
great  curves  that  almost  doubled  the  distance,  avoiding 
every  slightest  ridge,  as  if  the  road-builders  of  centuries  ago 
had  been  bent  on  making  the  journey  through  this  charming 
region  as  long  as  possible. 

Velden,  claiming  the  title  of  "city,"  was  as  unprogressive 
21  307 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

and  as  nearly  unclean  as  any  town  I  ever  saw  in  Bavaria. 
A  half-dozen  inns  flashed  signs  of  welcome  in  the  stranger's 
face,  yet  declined  to  furnish  the  hospitality  they  seemed  to 
offer.  I  canvassed  them  all,  only  to  be  as  many  times  turned 
away  by  females  almost  as  slatternly  in  appearance  and  as 
resentful  of  would-be  guests  as  the  Indians  of  the  Andes. 
One  might  have  fancied  the  hookworm  had  invaded  the 
town,  so  un-Bavarian  was  the  ambitionless  manner  of  its 
inhabitants  and  the  disheveled  aspect  of  its  clientless  public- 
houses.  Only  one  of  the  latter  consented  even  to  lodge  me, 
and  that  with  a  bad  grace  that  was  colder  than  indifference. 
None  of  them  would  so  much  as  listen  when  I  broached  the 
question  of  food. 

The  shopkeepers  treated  me  with  equal  scorn.  One  after 
another  they  asserted  that  they  had  not  a  scrap  of  Lebens- 
mittel  of  any  species  to  sell.  Three  times,  however,  they 
directed  me  to  the  Gasthaus  that  had  been  most  decided  in 
proclaiming  its  inability  to  supply  my  wants,  assuring  me 
that  the  proprietor  was  a  farmer  and  stock-breeder  who  had 
"more  than  enough  of  everything,  if  the  truth  were  known." 
But  a  second  visit  to  the  alleged  food-hoarder  merely  aroused 
the  assertion  that  his  fellow-townsmen  were  prevaricators 
striving  to  cover  up  their  own  faults  by  slandering  a  poor, 
hard-working  neighbor. 

Apparently  Velden  had  developed  a  case  of  nerves  on  the 
food  question.  This  was  natural  from  its  size  and  situa- 
tion— it  was  large  enough  to  feel  something  of  the  pinch 
that  the  blockade  had  brought  to  every  German  city,  yet 
nearly  enough  peasant-like  in  character  to  make  hoarding 
possible.  I  did  not  propose,  however,  to  let  an  excusable 
selfishness  deprive  me  of  my  evening  meal.  When  it  became 
certain  that  voluntary  accommodations  were  not  to  be  had, 
I  took  a  leaf  from  my  South  American  note-book  and  appealed 
my  case  to  the  local  authorities. 

The  Burgermeister  was  a  miller  on  the  river-bank  at  the 

308 


"FOOD  WEASELS" 

edge  of  town.  He  received  me  as  coldly  as  I  had  expected, 
and  continued  to  discuss  with  an  aged  assistant  the  action 
to  be  taken  on  certain  documents  which  my  arrival  had 
found  them  studying.  I  did  not  press  matters,  well  know- 
ing that  I  could  gain  full  attention  when  I  chose  and  be- 
ing interested  in  examining  the  town  headquarters.  It 
was  a  high,  time-smudged  room  of  the  old  stone  mill,  with 
great  beams  across  its  ceiling  and  crude  pigeonholes  stuffed 
with  musty,  age-yellowed  official  papers  along  its  walls. 
Now  and  again  a  local  citizen  knocked  timidly  at  the  door 
and  entered,  hat  in  hand,  to  make  some  request  of  the 
town's  chief  authority,  his  apologetic  air  an  amusing  con- 
trast to  the  commanding  tone  with  which  the  Burger- 
meister's  wife  bade  him,  from  the  opposite  entrance,  come 
to  supper. 

He  was  on  the  point  of  obeying  this  summons  when  I 
drew  forth  my  impressive  papers  and  stated  my  case. 
The  mayor  and  his  assistant  quickly  lost  their  supercilious 
attitude.  The  former  even  gave  my  demands  precedence 
over  those  of  his  wife.  He  slapped  a  hat  on  his  head  and, 
leaving  two  or  three  fellow-citizens  standing  uncovered 
where  the  new  turn  of  events  had  found  them,  set  out  with 
me  for  the  center  of  town.  There  he  confirmed  the  asser- 
tions of  the  "prevaricators"  by  marching  unhesitatingly 
into  the  same  Gasthaus,  to  "The  Black  Bear"  that  had  twice 
turned  me  away.  Bidding  me  take  seat  at  a  table,  he  dis- 
appeared into  the  kitchen.  Several  moments  later  he  re- 
turned, smiling  encouragingly,  and  sat  down  opposite  me 
with  the  information  that  "everything  had  been  arranged." 
Behind  him  came  the  landlady  who  had  so  forcibly  denied 
the  existence  of  food  on  her  premises  a  half-hour  before, 
smirking  hospitality  now  and  bearing  in  either  hand  a  mug 
of  beer.  Before  we  had  emptied  these  she  set  before  me  a 
heaping  plateful  of  steaming  potatoes,  boiled  in  their  jackets, 
enough  cold  ham  to  have  satisfied  even  a  tramp's  appetite 

309 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

several  times  over,  and  a  loaf  of  good  peasant's  bread  of  the 
size  and  shape  of  a  grindstone. 

The  Burgermeister  remained  with  me  to  the  end  of  his 
second  mug  of  beer,  declining  to  eat  for  reason  of  the  supper 
that  was  awaiting  him  at  home,  but  answering  my  questions 
with  the  over-courteous  deliberation  that  befitted  the  official 
part  I  was  playing.  When  he  left,  the  Wirt  seemed  to  feel 
it  his  duty  to  give  as  constant  attention  as  possible  to  so 
important  a  guest.  He  sat  down  in  the  vacated  chair 
opposite  and,  except  when  his  beer-serving  duties  required 
him  to  absent  himself  momentarily,  remained  there  all  the 
evening.  He  was  of  the  heavy,  stolid  type  of  most  of  his 
class,  a  peasant  by  day  and  the  chief  assistant  of  his  inn- 
keeping  spouse  during  the  evening.  For  fully  a  half-hour 
he  stared  at  me  unbrokenly,  watching  my  every  slightest 
movement  as  an  inventor  might  the  actions  of  his  latest 
contraption.  A  group  of  his  fellow-townsmen,  sipping  their 
beer  at  another  table,  kept  similar  vigil,  never  once  taking 
their  eyes  off  me,  uttering  not  a  sound,  sitting  as  motionless 
as  the  old  stone  statues  they  somehow  resembled,  except 
now  and  then  to  raise  their  mugs  to  their  lips  and  set  them 
noiselessly  down  again.  The  rather  slatternly  spouse  and 
her  brood  of  unkempt  urchins  surrounded  still  another  table, 
eying  me  as  fixedly  as  the  rest.  I  attempted  several  times 
to  break  the  ice,  with  no  other  success  than  to  evoke  a 
guttural  monosyllable  from  the  staring  landlord.  The  entire 
assembly  seemed  to  be  dumm  beyond  recovery,  to  be  stupid- 
ity personified.  Unable  to  force  oneself  upon  them,  one  could 
only  sit  and  wonder  what  was  taking  place  inside  their  thick 
skulls.  Their  vacant  faces  gave  not  an  inkling  of  thought. 
Whenever  I  exploded  a  question  in  the  oppressive  silence 
the  Wirt  answered  it  like  a  school-boy  reciting  some  reply 
learned  by  heart  from  his  books.  The  stone-headed  group 
listened  motionless  until  long  after  his  voice  had  died  away, 
and  drifted  back  into  their  silent,  automatic  beer-drinking. 

310 


"FOOD  WEASELS" 

It  was,  of  course,  as  much  bashfulness  as  stupidity  that 
held  them  dumb.  Peasants  the  world  over  are  more  or  less 
chary  of  expressing  themselves  before  strangers,  before 
"city  people,"  particularly  when  their  dialect  differs  con- 
siderably from  the  cultured  form  of  their  language.  But 
what  seemed  queerest  in  such  groups  as  these  was  their 
utter  lack  of  curiosity,  their  apparently  complete  want  of 
interest  in  anything  beyond  their  own  narrow  sphere. 
They  knew  I  was  an  American,  they  knew  I  had  seen  much 
of  the  other  side  of  the  struggle  that  had  oppressed  them 
for  nearly  five  years  and  brought  their  once  powerful  Father- 
land close  to  annihilation.  Yet  they  had  not  a  question  to 
ask.  It  was  as  if  they  had  grown  accustomed  through 
generations  of  training  to  having  their  information  delivered 
to  them  in  packages  bearing  the  seal  of  their  overlords,  and 
considered  it  neither  advantageous  nor  seemly  to  tap  any 
other  sources  they  came  upon  in  their  life's  journey. 

Very  gradually,  as  the  evening  wore  on,  the  landlord's 
replies  to  my  queries  reached  the  length  of  being  informa- 
tive. Velden,  he  asserted,  was  a  Protestant  community; 
there  was  not  a  Catholic  in  town,  nor  a  Jew.  On  the  other 
hand,  Neuhaus,  a  few  miles  beyond,  paid  universal  homage 
to  Rome.  With  a  population  of  one  hundred  and  seventy 
families,  averaging  four  to  five  each  now,  or  a  total  of  eight 
hundred,  Velden  had  lost  thirty-seven  men  in  the  war, 
besides  three  times  that  many  being  seriously  wounded, 
nearly  half  of  them  more  or  less  crippled  for  life.  Then 
there  were  some  fifty  prisoners  in  France,  whom  they  never 
expected  to  return.  The  Allies  would  keep  them  to  rebuild 
the  cities  the  Germans  had  destroyed — and  those  the 
Allied  artillery  had  ruined,  too ;  that  was  the  especially  unfair 
side  of  it.  No,  he  had  not  been  a  soldier  himself — he  was 
barely  forty  and  to  all  appearances  as  powerful  as  an  ox — 
because  he  had  been  more  useful  at  home.  His  family 
had  not  exactly  suffered,  though  the  schools  had  become 

3" 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

almost  a  farce,  with  all  the  teachers  at  war.  Women? 
Faugh!  How  can  women  teach  boys?  They  grow  up 
altogether  too  soft  even  under  the  strengest  of  masters.  As 
to  food;  well,  being  mostly  peasants,  they  probably  had 
about  a  hundred  pounds  of  fat  or  meat  where  two  hundred 
or  so  were  needed.  But  it  was  a  constant  struggle  to  keep 
the  "hamsterers"  from  carrying  off  what  the  town  required 
for  its  own  use. 

That  the  struggle  had  been  won  was  evident  from  the 
quantities  of  ham,  beef,  potatoes,  and  bread  which  his  wife 
served  her  habitual  clients  in  the  course  of  the  evening. 
She  seemed  to  have  food  hidden  away  in  every  nook  and 
cranny  of  the  house,  like  a  miser  his  gold,  and  acknowledged 
its  existence  with  the  canniness  of  the  South  American 
Indian.  As  she  lighted  me  to  a  comfortable  bedchamber 
above,  as  clean  as  the  lower  story  was  disorderly,  she  re- 
marked, apologetically: 

"If  I  had  known  in  what  purpose  you  were  here  I  would 
not  have  sent  you  away  when  you  first  came.  But  another 
American  food  commissioner  was  in  Velden  just  two  days 
ago,  a  major  who  has  his  headquarters  in  Nurnberg.  He 
came  with  a  German  captain,  and  they  went  fishing  on  the 
river." 

In  the  morning  she  served  me  real  coffee,  with  milk  and 
white  loaf  sugar,  two  eggs,  appealingly  fresh,  bread  and 
butter,  and  an  excellent  cake — and  her  bill  for  everything, 
including  the  lodging,  was  six  marks.  In  Berlin  or  Munich 
the  food  alone,  had  it  been  attainable,  would  have  cost 
thirty  to  forty  marks.  Plainly  it  was  advantageous  to 
Velden  to  pose  as  suffering  from  food  scarcity. 

The  same  species  of  selfishness  was  in  evidence  in  the 
region  round  about.  Not  one  of  the  several  villages  tucked 
away  in  the  great  evergreen  forests  of  the  "Frankische 
Schweitz"  through  which  my  route  wound  that  day  would 
exchange  foodstuffs  of  any  species  for  mere  money.  When 

312 


"FOOD  WEASELS" 

noon  lay  so  far  behind  me  that  I  was  tempted  to  use  physical 
force  to  satisfy  my  appetite,  I  entered  the  crude  Gasihaus 
of  a  little  woodcutters'  hamlet.  A  family  of  nearly  a  dozen 
sat  at  a  table  occupying  half  the  room,  wolfing  a  dinner 
that  gave  little  evidence  of  war-time  scarcity.  Here,  too, 
there  was  an  abundance  of  meat,  potatoes,  bread,  and 
several  other  appetizing  things.  But  strangers  were  wel- 
come only  to  beer.  Could  one  live  on  that,  there  would 
never  be  any  excuse  for  going  hungry  in  Bavaria.  When  I 
asked  for  food  also  the  coarse-featured,  bedraggled  female 
who  had  filled  my  mug  snarled  like  a  dog  over  a  bone  and 
sat  down  with  her  family  again,  heaping  her  plate  high 
with  a  steaming  stew.  I  persisted,  and  she  rose  at  last 
with  a  growl  and  served  me  a  bowl  of  some  kind  of  oatmeal 
gruel,  liquid  with  milk.  For  this  she  demanded  ten  pfen- 
nigs, or  nearly  three-fourths  of  a  cent.  But  if  it  was  cheap, 
nothing  could  induce  her  to  sell  more  of  it.  My  loudest 
appeals  for  a  second  helping,  for  anything  else,  even  for  a 
slice  of  the  immense  loaf  of  bread  from  which  each  member 
of  the  gorging  family  slashed  himself  a  generous  portion  at 
frequent  intervals,  were  treated  with  the  scornful  silence 
with  which  the  police  sergeant  might  ignore  the  shouts 
of  a  drunken  prisoner. 

Birds  sang  a  bit  dolefully  in  the  immense  forest  that 
stretched  for  miles  beyond.  Peasants  were  scraping  up  the 
mosslike  growth  that  covered  the  ground  and  piling  it  in 
heaps  near  the  road,  whence  it  was  hauled  away  in  wagons 
so  low  on  their  wheels  that  they  suggested  dachshunds. 
The  stuff  served  as  bedding  for  cattle,  sometimes  for  fer- 
tilizer, and  now  and  then,  during  the  past  year  or  two,  as 
fodder.  The  tops  of  all  trees  felled  were  carried  away  and 
made  use  of  in  the  same  manner.  A  dozen  times  a  day, 
through  all  this  region  of  Bavaria,  I  passed  women,  singly 
or  in  groups,  in  the  villages,  laboriously  chopping  up  the 
tops  and  branches  of  evergreens  on  broad  wooden  blocks, 

313 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

with  a  tool  resembling  a  heavy  meat-cleaver.  Hundreds 
of  the  larger  trees  had  been  tapped  for  their  pitch,  used 
in  the  making  of  turpentine,  the  trunks  being  scarred  with 
a  dozen  large  V-shaped  gashes  joined  together  by  a  single 
line  ending  at  a  receptacle  of  the  form  of  a  sea-shell.  Horses 
were  almost  never  seen  along  the  roads,  and  seldom  in  the 
fields.  The  draught  animals  were  oxen,  or,  still  more  often, 
cows,  gaunt  and  languid  from  their  double  contribution 
to  man's  requirements.  At  the  rare  blacksmith  shops  the 
combined  force  of  two  or  three  workmen  was  more  likely 
to  be  found  shoeing  a  cow  than  anything  else.  Of  all  the 
signs  of  the  paternal  care  the  Kaiser's  government  took 
of  its  people,  none,  perhaps,  was  more  amusing  than  the 
Hemmstelle  along  the  way.  At  the  top  of  every  grade  stood 
a  post  with  a  cast-iron  rectangle  bearing  that  word — Ger- 
man for  "braking-place" — and,  for  the  benefit  of  the 
illiterate,  an  image  of  the  old-fashioned  wagon-brake — a 
species  of  iron  shoe  to  be  placed  under  the  hind  wheel — 
that  is  still  widely  used  in  the  region.  Evidently  the 
fatherly  government  could  not  even  trust  its  simple  sub- 
jects to  recognize  a  hill  when  they  saw  one. 

Pegnitz,  though  not  much  larger,  was  a  much  more  pro- 
gressive town  than  Velden.  Its  principal  Gasthaus  was 
just  enough  unlike  a  city  hotel  to  retain  all  the  charm  of  a 
country  inn,  while  boasting  such  improvements  as  table- 
cloths and  electric  buttons  that  actually  brought  a  servant 
to  the  same  room  as  that  occupied  by  the  guest  who  pressed 
them.  Yet  it  retained  an  innlike  modesty  of  price.  My 
full  day's  accommodation  there  cost  no  more  than  had  my 
night  in  Velden — or  would  not  have  had  I  had  the  courage 
to  refuse  the  mugs  of  beer  that  were  instantly  forthcoming 
as  often  as  I  sat  down  at  the  guest-room  table.  To  be  sure, 
no  meat  was  served,  being  replaced  by  fish.  The  day  was 
Tuesday  and  for  some  reason  Pegnitz  obeyed  the  law  com- 
manding all  Germany  to  go  meatless  twice  a  week.  Ap- 


"FOOD  WEASELS" 

patently  it  was  alone  among  the  Bavarian  towns  in  observing 
this  regulation.  I  remember  no  other  day  without  meat 
in  all  my  tramp  northward  from  Munich,  even  though 
Friday  always  caught  me  in  a  Catholic  section.  Usually  I 
had  meat  twice  a  day,  often  three  times,  and,  on  one  glorious 
occasion,  four. 

An  afternoon  downpour  held  me  for  a  day  in  Pegnitz. 
I  improved  the  time  by  visiting  most  of  the  merchants  in 
town,  in  my  pseudo-official  capacity.  Of  the  three  grocers, 
two  were  completely  out  of  foodstuffs,  the  other  fairly  well 
supplied.  They  took  turns  in  stocking  up  with  everything 
available,  so  that  each  became  the  town  grocer  every  third 
month  and  contented  himself  with  dispensing  a  few  non- 
edible  articles  during  the  intervening  sixty  days.  The 
baker,  who  looked  so  much  like  a  heavy-weight  pugilist 
that  even  the  huge  grindstone  loaves  seemed  delicate 
in  his  massive  hands,  was  stoking  his  oven  with  rubbish 
from  the  surrounding  forest,  mixed  with  charcoal,  when  I 
found  him.  Fuel,  he  complained,  had  become  such  a  problem 
that  it  would  have  kept  him  awake  nights,  if  a  baker  ever 
had  any  time  to  sleep.  Before  the  war  the  rest  of  the  town 
burned  coal ;  now  he  had  to  compete  with  every  one  for  his 
wood  and  charcoal.  His  oven  was  an  immense  affair  of 
stone  and  brick,  quite  like  the  outdoor  bake-huts  one  finds 
through  all  Bavaria,  but  set  down  into  the  cellar  at  the 
back  of  his  shop  and  reaching  to  the  roof.  He  opened  a 
sack  of  flour  and  spread  some  of  it  out  before  me.  It  looked 
like  a  very  coarse  bran.  Yet  it  was  twice  as  expensive 
as  the  fine  white  flour  of  pre-war  days,  he  growled.  Bread 
prices  in  Pegnitz  had  a  bit  more  than  doubled.  He  had 
no  more  say  in  setting  the  price  than  any  other  citizen ;  the 
Municipal  Council  had  assumed  that  responsibility.  Women, 
children,  and  men  in  poor  health  suffered  from  the  stuff. 
Some  had  ruined  their  stomachs  entirely  with  it.  Yet 
Pegnitz  bread  had  never  been  made  of  anything  but  wheat. 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

In  Munich  the  bakers  used  potato  flour  and  worse;  he  had 
seen  some  of  the  rascals  put  in  sawdust.  He  had  heard  that 
America  was  sending  white  flour  to  Germany,  but  certainly 
none  of  it  had  ever  reached  Pegnitz. 

The  village  milk-dealer  was  more  incensed  on  this  subject 
of  bread  than  on  the  scarcity  of  his  own  stock.  Or  perhaps 
a  milder  verb  would  more  exactly  picture  his  attitude;  he 
was  too  anemic  and  lifeless  to  be  incensed  at  anything. 
His  cadaverous  form  gave  him  the  appearance  of  an  under- 
nourished child,  compared  to  the  brawny  baker,  and  anger 
was  too  strong  an  emotion  for  his  weakened  state.  Mis- 
fortune merely  left  him  sad  and  increased  the  hopeless 
look  in  his  watery  eyes,  deep  sunken  in  their  wide  frame 
of  blue  flesh-rings.  He  had  spent  two  years  in  the  trenches 
and  returned  home  so  far  gone  in  health  that  he  could  not 
even  endure  the  war-bread  his  wife  and  five  small  children 
had  grown  so  thin  on  during  his  absence.  Before  the  war 
he  could  carry  a  canful  of  milk  the  entire  length  of  the  shop 
without  the  least  difficulty.  Now  if  he  merely  attempted 
to  lift  one  his  head  swam  for  an  hour  afterward.  People 
were  not  exactly  starved  to  death,  he  said,  but  they  were  so 
run  down  that  if  they  caught  anything,  even  the  minor  ills 
no  one  had  paid  any  attention  to  before  the  war,  they  were 
more  apt  to  die  than  to  get  well.  Pegnitz  had  lost  more 
of  its  inhabitants  at  home  in  that  way  than  had  been  killed 
in  the  war. 

One  hundred  and  forty  liters  of  milk  was  the  daily  supply 
for  a  population  of  three  thousand  now.  The  town  had 
consumed  about  five  hundred  before  the  war.  Children 
under  two  were  entitled  to  a  liter  a  day,  but  only  those 
whose  parents  were  first  to  arrive  when  the  daily  supply 
came  in  got  that  amount.  My  visit  was  well  timed,  for 
customers  were  already  forming  a  line  at  the  door,  each 
carrying  a  small  pail  or  pitcher  and  clutching  in  one  hand 
his  precious  yellow  milk-sheet.  It  was  five  in  the  afternoon. 

316 


"FOOD  WEASELS" 

The  town  milk-gatherer  drew  up  before  the  door  in  an 
ancient  "Dachshund"  wagon  drawn  by  two  emaciated 
horses,  and  carried  his  four  cans  inside.  The  dispenser 
introduced  me  to  him  and  turned  to  help  his  wife  dole  out 
the  precious  liquid.  They  knew,  of  course,  the  family  con- 
ditions of  every  customer  and,  in  consequence,  the  amount 
to  which  each  was  entitled,  and  clipped  the  corresponding 
coupons  from  the  yellow  sheets  without  so  much  as  glancing 
at  them.  Some  received  as  little  as  a  small  cupful;  the 
majority  took  a  half-liter.  In  ten  minutes  the  four  cans 
stood  empty  and  the  shopkeeper  slouched  out  to  join  us 
again. 

"You  see  that  woman?"  he  asked,  pointing  after  the 
retreating  figure  of  his  last  customer.  "She  looks  about 
sixty,  nicht  wahr?  She  is  really  thirty-six.  Her  husband 
was  killed  at  Verdun.  She  has  four  small  children  and  is  en- 
titled to  two  full  liters.  But  she  can  only  afford  to  buy  a  half- 
liter  a  day — milk  has  doubled  in  price  in  the  past  four  years ; 
thirty-two  pfennigs  a  liter  now — so  she  always  comes  near 
the  end  when  there  is  not  two  liters  left,  because  she  is 
ashamed  to  say  she  cannot  buy  her  full  allowance.  We 
always  save  a  half -liter  for  her,  and  if  some  one  else  comes 
first  we  tell  them  the  cans  are  ausgepumpt.  There  are  many 
like  her  in  Pegnitz — unable  to  pay  for  as  much  as  their 
tickets  allow  them.  That  is  lucky,  too,  for  there  would 
not  be  half  enough  to  go  round.  If  I  were  not  in  the  milk 
business  myself  I  don't  know  what  I  should  do,  either, 
with  our  five  children.  About  all  the  profit  we  get  out 
of  the  business  now  is  our  own  three  liters." 

The  milk-gatherer  was  of  a  jolly  temperament.  His  smile 
disclosed  every  few  seconds  the  two  lonely  yellow  fangs  that 
decorated  his  upper  jaw.  Perhaps  no  other  one  thing  so 
strikingly  illustrates  the  deterioration  which  the  war  has 
brought  the  German  physique  as  the  condition  of  the  teeth. 
In  my  former  visits  to  the  Empire  I  had  constantly  admired 

317 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

the  splendid,  strong  white  teeth  of  all  classes.  To-day 
it  is  almost  rare  to  find  an  adult  with  a  full  set.  The  ma- 
jority are  as  unsightly  in  this  respect  as  the  lower  classes 
of  England.  When  the  prisoners  who  poured  in  upon  us 
during  the  last  drives  of  the  war  first  called  attention  to 
this  change  for  the  worse,  I  set  it  down  as  the  result  of  life 
in  the  trenches.  Back  of  the  lines,  however,  Ersatz  food 
and  under-nourishment  seem  to  have  had  as  deleterious 
an  effect. 

Milk,  said  the  man  who  had  brought  Pegnitz  its  supply 
for  years,  was  by  no  means  as  rich  as  it  used  to  be.  Fodder 
was  scarce,  and  every  one  used  his  milch  cow  as  oxen  now, 
far  more  than  formerly.  He  set  out  at  four  every  morning 
of  his  life,  covered  twenty  miles,  or  more  than  twice  what 
he  had  before  the  war,  and  sometimes  could  not  fill  his 
four  cans  at  that.  Up  to  a  few  months  before  he  had  had 
an  assistant — an  English  prisoner.  He  never  tired  of  sing- 
ing the  praises  of  "my  Englishman,"  as  he  called  him. 
He  worked  some  reference  to  him  into  every  sentence,  each 
time  displaying  his  fangs  in  his  pleasure  at  the  recollection. 
"My  Englishman"  had  come  to  him  in  1915.  He  was  a 
bank  clerk  at  home  and  knew  no  more  of  farming  than  a 
child.  But  he  had  learned  quickly,  and  to  speak  German 
as  well — a  sad  German  it  must  have  been  indeed  if  he 
had  copied  from  the  dialect  of  the  region.  For  months  at  a 
time  "my  Englishman"  had  driven  the  milk  route  alone, 
while  he  remained  at  home  to  work  in  the  fields.  Run 
away!  Nonsense!  He  had  told  people  he  had  never 
enjoyed  himself  half  so  much  in  London.  He  had  promised 
to  come  back  after  peace.  He  stayed  until  two  months 
after  the  armistice.  His  last  words  were  that  he  knew  he 
could  never  endure  it  to  sit  all  day  on  a  stool,  in  a  stuffy 
office,  after  roaming  the  hills  of  Bavaria  nearly  four  years. 
On  Sundays  he  went  miles  away  to  visit  other  Englishmen. 
French  prisoners  went  where  they  liked,  too;  no  one  ever 

318 


WOMEN     AND     OXEN — OR     COWS — WERE     MORE     NUMEROUS     THAN     MEN     AND 
HORSES   IN   THE    FIELDS 


THE    BAVARIAN    PEASANT    DOES   HIS   BAKING   IN    AN   OUTDOOR   OVEN 


WOMEN  CHOPPING  UP  THE  TOPS  OF  EVERGREEN  TREES  FOR  FUEL  AND  FODDER 


THE   GREAT   BREWERIES   OF   KULMBACH    NEARLY   ALL   STOOD   IDLE 


"FOOD  WEASELS" 

bothered  them.  They  had  all  left  in  January,  in  a  special 
train.  Yes,  most  of  them  had  been  good  workmen,  "my 
Englishman  "  especially.  They  had  labored  with  the  women 
in  the  fields  when  the  men  were  away,  and  helped  them  about 
the  house.  They  had  always  been  friendly,  sometimes  too 
friendly.  Did  I  see  that  little  boy  across  the  street,  there 
in  front  of  the  widow's  cloth-shop?  Every  one  knew  he 
was  English.  But  what  could  you  expect,  with  husbands 
away  sometimes  for  years  at  a  time  ? 

Pegnitz  boasted  a  large  iron-foundry  and  a  considerable 
population  of  factory  hands.  Rumor  had  it  that  this  class 
held  more  enmity  toward  citizens  of  the  Allied  powers 
than  the  rural  population,  that  it  would  even  be  dangerous 
for  me  to  mix  with  them.  I  took  pains,  therefore,  to  stroll 
toward  the  foundry  gate  as  the  workmen  were  leaving,  at 
six.  They  toiled  eight  hours  a  day,  like  all  their  class 
throughout  Germany  now,  but  took  advantage  of  the  change 
to  sleep  late,  "like  the  capitalists,"  beginning  their  labors 
at  eight  and  taking  two  hours  off  at  noon.  I  picked  out  an 
intelligent-looking  workman  and  fell  into  conversation 
with  him,  deliberately  emphasizing  the  fact  that  I  was  an 
American.  A  considerable  group  of  his  fellows  crowded 
around  us,  and  several  joined  in  the  conversation.  But 
though  two  or  three  scowled  a  bit  when  my  nationality  was 
whispered  through  the  gathering,  it  was  evidently  merely 
a  sign  that  they  were  puzzling  to  know  how  I  had  come 
so  far  afield  so  soon  after  the  signing  of  the  armistice.  Far 
from  showing  any  enmity,  they  evinced  a  most  friendly 
curiosity,  tinged  only  once  or  twice  with  a  mild  and  crude 
attempt  at  sarcasm  which  the  others  at  once  scowled  down. 
Several  wished  to  know  how  wages  were  in  their  line  in 
America,  particularly  whether  our  workmen  had  forced 
"the  capitalists"  to  grant  the  eight-hour  day,  and  several 
inquired  how  soon  I  thought  it  would  be  possible  to  emigrate 
— how  soon,  that  is,  that  enough  ships  would  be  released 

319 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

from  military  service  to  bring  fares  down  within  reach  of  a 
working-man's  purse.  Not  one  of  them  seemed  to  suspect 
that  there  might  be  other  difficulties  than  financial  ones. 
Then,  of  course,  the  majority  deluged  me  with  questions 
as  to  when  America  would  actually  begin  to  send  fats  and 
foodstuffs  and  raw  materials  for  their  factories  and — and 
tobacco.  There  was  little  suggestion  of  under-nourishment 
in  this  gathering,  though,  to  be  sure,  none  of  them  seemed 
overfed.  They  looked  hardy  and  fit;  the  faces  under  the 
red-banded,  visorless  caps  that  covered  a  majority  of  the 
heads  showed  few  signs  of  ill  health.  It  is  not  so  much 
the  factory  hands  themselves,  with  their  out-of-work  pen- 
sions even  when  labor  is  lacking,  who  suffer  from  the  stag- 
nation of  Germany's  industries,  as  the  hangers-on  of  the 
factory  class — the  busy- time  helpers,  the  unprovided  women 
and  children,  the  small  shopkeepers  who  depend  on  this 
class  for  their  clientele. 


XV 

MUSIC   STILL   HAS    CHARMS 

ABROAD  highway  offering  several  fine  vistas  brought 
me  at  noon  to  Bayreuth.  The  street  that  led  me  to 
the  central  square  was  called  Wagnerstrasse  and  passed 
directly  by  the  last  home  of  the  famous  composer.  As  soon 
as  a  frock-tailed  hotel  force  had  ministered  to  my  immediate 
necessities  I  strolled  back  to  visit  the  place.  Somewhere 
I  had  picked  up  the  impression  that  it  had  been  turned 
into  a  museum,  like  the  former  residences  of  Goethe  and 
Schiller.  Nearly  a  year  before,  I  recalled  the  Paris  papers 
had  announced  the  death  of  Frau  Wagner,  and  certainly  the 
Germans  would  not  allow  the  home  of  their  great  musician 
to  fall  into  other  hands.  I  turned  in  at  the  tall  grilled  gate, 
fastened  only  with  a  latch,  and  sauntered  along  the  broad 
driveway,  shaded  by  magnificent  trees  that  half  hid  the 
wide  house  at  the  end  of  it.  This  was  a  two-story  building 
in  reddish-yellow  brick,  rectangular  of  facade  under  its 
almost  flat  roof,  the  door  gained  by  a  balustraded  stone 
veranda  without  covering  and  with  steps  at  either  end. 
A  large  bust,  not  of  the  composer,  as  I  had  fancied  at  a 
distance,  but  of  his  royal  companion,  Ludwig,  stared  down 
the  driveway  at  my  approach.  As  I  paused  to  look  at  this 
the  only  person  in  sight  glanced  up  at  me  with  what  seemed 
an  air  between  anger  and  surprise.  He  was  an  aged  gar- 
dener, shriveled  in  form  and  face,  who  was  engaged  in 
watering  the  masses  of  flowers  of  many  species  that  sur- 

321 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

rounded  the  house  on  every  side.  Something  in  his  manner, 
as  he  set  down  his  watering-pot  and  shuffled  toward  me, 
plus  the  absence  of  any  of  the  outward  signs  of  a  public 
place  of  pilgrimage,  suggested  that  I  was  in  the  wrong  pew. 

"Does  some  one  live  here?"  I  hazarded,  lamely. 

"Certainly,  the  Wagner  family,"  he  replied,  sharply, 
glaring  at  me  under  bushy  eyebrows. 

"But — er — Frau  Wagner  being  dead,  I  thought  ..." 

"Frau  Wagner  is  as  alive  as  you  or  I,"  he  retorted,  staring 
as  if  he  suspected  me  of  being  some  harmless  species  of 
maniac. 

"Frau  Cosima  Wagner,  wife  of  the  composer?"  I  per- 
sisted, smiling  at  what  seemed  to  be  the  forgetfulness  of  an 
old  man;  "why,  my  dear  fellow,  her  death  was  in  the  papers 
a  year  ago  .  .  ." 

"Frau  Cosima  Wagner,  jawohl,  mein  Herr,"  he  retorted. 
"As  I  cut  flowers  for  her  room  every  morning  and  see  her 
every  afternoon,  I  suppose  I  know  as  much  about  it  as  the 
papers.  It  was  quite  another  Frau  Wagner  who  died 
last  year;  and  the  fool  newspapers  seldom  know  what  they 
are  talking  about,  anyway.  Then  there  is  .  .  ." 

His  voice  had  dropped  to  a  whisper  and  I  followed  the 
gaze  he  had  turned  into  the  house.  Over  the  veranda 
balustrade  a  bareheaded  man  stared  down  at  us  like  one  who 
had  been  disturbed  from  mental  labors,  or  an  afternoon  nap, 
by  our  chatter.  He  was  short  and  slight,  yet  rather  strongly 
built,  too,  with  iron-gray  hair  and  a  smooth-shaven  face. 
A  photograph  I  had  seen  somewhere  suddenly  rose  to  the 
surface  of  my  memory  and  I  recognized  Siegfried  Wagner, 
son  of  the  musician,  whose  existence  I  had  for  the  moment 
forgotten.  Having  glared  us  into  silence,  he  turned  abruptly 
and  re-entered  the  house. 

"Herr  Siegfried  and  his  wife  and  his  two  children  live 
here  also,"  went  on  the  gardener,  in  a  whisper  that  was 
still  harsh  and  uninviting,  "and  ..." 

322 


MUSIC  STILL  HAS  CHARMS 

But  I  was  already  beating  a  discreet  retreat,  resolved  to 
make  sure  of  my  ground  before  I  marched  in  upon  another 
"museum." 

I  turned  down  the  next  side-street,  passing  on  the  corner 
the  house  of  Herr  Chamberlain,  the  Englishman  who  mar- 
ried Frau  Wagner's  daughter,  and,  farther  on,  the  former 
home  of  Liszt,  not  the  least  of  the  old  lady's  acquaintances, 
then  unexpectedly  found  myself  again  looking  in  upon  the 
Wagner  residence.  The  high  brick  wall  had  suddenly 
ended  and  the  iron-grilled  fence  that  followed  it  disclosed 
flower-gardens  and  house  in  their  entirety.  It  was  an 
agreeable  dwelling-place,  certainly,  flanked  front  and  rear 
with  forest-like  parks  in  which  birds  sang  constantly, 
and  set  far  enough  back  from  the  main  street  so  that  its 
noises  blended  together  into  what,  no  doubt,  the  composer 
would  have  recognized  as  music. 

But  I  had  no  intention  of  spying  upon  a  private  residence. 
I  turned  my  face  sternly  to  the  front  and  hurried  on — until 
a  sound  between  a  cough  and  a  hiss,  twice  repeated,  called 
my  attention  once  more  to  the  flower-plots  behind  the  grill. 
The  aged  gardener  was  worming  his  way  hurriedly  toward 
me  and  beckoning  me  to  wait.  When  only  an  upright  iron 
bar  separated  us  he  whispered  hoarsely,  still  in  his  curiously 
unwelcoming  tone: 

"If  you  wish  to  see  the  Wagner  grave,  turn  down  that 
next  opening  into  the  park  and  come  back  this  way  through 
it.  I  will  be  at  the  gate  to  let  you  in." 

He  had  the  back  entrance  to  the  Wagner  estate  unlocked 
when  I  reached  it  and  led  the  way  around  a  mass  of  flowering 
bushes  to  the  plain  flat  slab  of  marble  without  inscription 
under  which  the  composer  lies  buried  in  his  own  back  yard. 
But  for  the  house  fifty  yards  away  it  would  have  been 
easy  to  imagine  oneself  in  the  depth  of  a  forest.  The  old 
gardener  considered  his  fee  earned  when  he  had  showed  me 
the  grave,  and  he  answered  my  questions  with  cold  brevity. 
32  323 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

He  had  held  his  present  position  for  thirty-eight  years. 
Of  course  he  had  known  Heir  Richard.  Hadn't  he  seen 
and  talked  with  him  every  day  for  many  years?  No,  there 
was  nothing  unusual  about  him.  He  was  like  any  other 
rich  man,  except  that  he  was  always  making  music.  It  was 
plain  that  the  gardener  thought  this  a  rather  foolish  hobby. 
He  spoke  of  his  former  master  with  that  slight  tinge  of 
scorn,  mingled  with  considerable  pride  at  the  importance 
of  his  own  position,  which  servants  so  often  show  in  dis- 
cussing employers  whom  the  world  considers  famous,  and 
changed  the  subject  as  soon  as  possible  to  the  all-engrossing 
scarcity  of  food.  Even  Herr  Siegfried  and  his  family  suf- 
fered from  that,  he  asserted.  He  was  still  grumbling 
hungrily  when  he  pocketed  what  pewter  coins  I  had  left 
and,  locking  the  gate,  shuffled  back  to  his  watering-pots. 

The  outwardly  ugly  Wagner  opera-house  on  a  hillock 
at  the  farther  end  of  town  was  as  dismal  in  its  abandonment 
as  most  cheap  structures  become  that  have  stood  five 
years  unoccupied  and  unrepaired.  There  was  nothing 
to  recall  the  famous  singers  and  the  international  throngs 
from  kings  to  scrimping  schoolma'ams  from  overseas,  who 
had  so  often  gathered  here  for  the  annual  Wagner  festival. 
A  few  convalescing  soldiers  lounged  under  the  surrounding 
trees;  from  the  graveled  terrace  one  had  an  all-embracing 
view  of  Bayreuth  and  the  rolling  hills  about  it.  But  only 
a  few  twittering  birds  broke  the  silence  of  a  spot  that  had 
so  often  echoed  with  the  strident  strains  of  all  the  musical 
instruments  known  to  mankind. 

The  change  from  a  country  town  of  three  thousand 
to  a  city  of  thirty  thousand  emphasized  once  more  the  dis- 
advantage, in  the  matter  of  food,  of  the  urban  dweller. 
The  hotel  that  housed  me  in  Bayreuth  swarmed  with 
waiters  in  evening  dress  and  with  a  host  of  useless  flunkies, 
but  its  dining-room  was  no  place  for  a  tramp's  appetite. 
The  scarcity  was  made  all  the  more  oppressive  by  the 

324 


MUSIC  STILL  HAS  CHARMS 

counting  of  crumbs  and  laboriously  entering  them  in  a 
ledger,  which  occupied  an  imposing  personage  at  the  door, 
after  the  fashion  of  Europe's  more  expensive  establishments. 
In  a  Bavarian  Gasikaus  a  dinner  of  meat,  potatoes,  bread, 
and  perhaps  a  soup  left  the  most  robust  guest  at  peace  with 
the  world  for  hours  afterward.  I  ordered  the  same  here, 
but  when  I  had  seen  the  "meat"  I  quickly  concluded  not 
to  skip  the  fish  course,  and  the  sight  of  that  turned  my 
attention  once  more  to  the  menu-card.  When  I  had  made 
way  with  all  it  had  to  offer,  from  top  to  bottom,  I  rose  with  a 
strong  desire  to  go  somewhere  and  get  something  to  eat. 
It  would  probably  have  been  a  vain  quest,  in  Bayreuth. 
Yet  my  bill  was  more  than  one-fourth  as  much  as  the  one 
hundred  and  twenty -four  marks  I  had  squandered  during  my 
first  week  on  the  road  in  Bavaria. 

The  hotel  personnel  was  vastly  excited  at  the  announce- 
ment of  my  nationality.  To  them  it  seemed  to  augur 
the  arrival  of  more  of  my  fellow-countrymen,  with  their  well- 
filled  purses,  to  be  the  rebeginning  of  the  good  old  days 
when  tips  showered  upon  them.  Moreover,  it  gave  them 
an  opportunity  to  air  their  opinions  on  the  "peace  of  vio- 
lence" and  the  Allied  world  in  general.  They  were  typically 
German  opinions,  all  carefully  tabulated  under  the  custom- 
ary headings.  The  very  errand-boys  bubbled  over  with 
impressions  on  those  unescapable  Fourteen  Points;  they 
knew  by  heart  the  reasons  why  the  proposed  treaty  was 
"inacceptable"  and  "unfulfillable."  But  the  final  attitude 
of  all  was,  "Let's  stop  this  foolish  fighting  and  get  back  to 
the  times  of  the  annual  festival  and  its  flocks  of  tourists." 

The  Royal  Opera  House  next  door  announced  a  gala 
performance  that  evening.  I  got  my  ticket  early,  fearful 
of  being  crowded  away  from  what  promised  to  be  my  first 
artistic  treat  in  a  fortnight.  I  took  pains  to  choose  a  seat 
near  enough  the  front  to  catch  each  detail,  yet  far  enough 
away  from  the  orchestra  not  to  be  deafened  by  its  Wag- 

325 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

nerian  roar — and  when  I  arrived  the  orchestra  seemed  to 
have  been  dead  for  years!  The  place  it  should  have  occu- 
pied was  filled  with  broken  chairs  and  music-racks  black 
with  age,  and  resembled  nothing  so  much  as  grandfather's 
garret.  A  single  light,  somewhat  more  powerful  than  a 
candle,  burned  high  up  under  the  dome  of  the  house  and 
cast  faint,  weird  flickers  over  its  dusty  regal  splendor. 
For  some  reason  the  place  was  cold  as  an  ice-house,  though 
the  weather  outside  was  comfortable,  and  the  scattered 
audience  shivered  audibly  in  its  scanty  Ersatz  garments. 
It  was  without  doubt  the  most  poorly  dressed,  unprepossess- 
ing little  collection  of  hearers  that  I  had  ever  seen  gathered 
together  in  such  an  edifice.  One  was  reminded  not  merely 
that  the  textile-mills  of  Bayreuth  had  only  paper  to  work 
with  now,  but  that  soap  had  become  an  unattainable  luxury 
in  Germany.  Plainly  das  Volk  had  taken  over  the  exiled 
king's  playhouse  for  itself.  Even  the  ornate  old  royal  loge 
was  occupied  by  a  few  patched  soldiers  and  giggling  girls 
of  the  appearance  of  waitresses.  But  to  what  purpose? 
Surely  such  an  audience  as  this  could  not  find  entertain- 
ment in  one  of  Germany's  classics !  Alas !  it  was  I  who  had 
been  led  astray !  The  promising  title  of  the  play  announced 
was  mere  camouflage.  Who  perpetrated  the  incomprehen- 
sible, inane  rubbish  on  which  the  curtain  finally  rose,  and 
why,  are  questions  I  willingly  left  to  the  howling  audience, 
which  dodged  back  and  forth,  utterly  oblivious  of  the  fact 
that  the  Royal  Opera  House  had  been  erected  before  theater- 
builders  discovered  that  it  was  easier  to  see  between  two 
heads  than  through  one.  Surely  German  Kultur,  theatri- 
cally at  least,  was  on  the  down-grade  in  Bayreuth. 

A  few  miles  out  along  a  highway  framed  in  apple  blos- 
soms next  morning  I  overtook  a  group  of  some  twenty 
persons.  The  knapsacks  on  their  backs  suggested  a  party 
of  "hamsterers,"  but  as  I  drew  nearer  I  noted  that  each 
carried  some  species  of  musical  instrument.  Now  and 

326 


MUSIC  STILL  HAS  CHARMS 

again  the  whole  group  fell  to  singing  and  playing  as  they 
marched,  oblivious  to  the  stares  of  the  peasants  along  the 
way.  I  concluded  that  it  was  my  duty  to  satisfy  my 
curiosity  by  joining  them,  and  did  so  by  a  simple  little 
ruse,  plus  the  assistance  of  my  kodak.  They  were  a  San- 
gerverein  from  Bayreuth.  Each  holiday  they  celebrated 
by  an  excursion  to  some  neighboring  town,  and  this  was 
Himmelsfahrt,  or  Assumption  Day.  The  members  ranged 
from  shy  little  girls  of  twelve  to  stodgy  men  and  women  of 
fifty.  The  leader  was  a  blind  man,  a  veteran  of  the  trenches, 
who  not  only  directed  the  playing  and  singing,  with  his 
cane  as  a  baton,  but  marched  briskly  along  the  snaky 
highway  without  a  hint  of  assistance. 

There  were  a  half-dozen  discharged  soldiers  in  the 
glee  club,  but  if  anything  this  increased  the  eagerness  with 
which  I  was  welcomed.  Their  attitude  was  almost  exactly 
what  would  be  that  of  a  football  team  which  chanced  to 
meet  a  rival  player  a  year  or  so  after  disbanding — they  were 
glad  to  compare  notes  and  to  amuse  themselves  by  living 
over  old  times  again.  For  a  while  I  deliberately  tried  to 
stir  up  some  sign  of  anger  or  resentment  among  them; 
if  they  had  any  personal  feelings  during  the  contest  they 
had  now  completely  faded  out  of  existence.  One  dwarfish, 
insignificant,  whole-hearted  little  fellow,  a  mill-hand  on 
week-days,  had  been  in  the  same  sector  as  I  during  the 
reduction  of  the  St.-Mihiel  salient.  Unless  we  misunder- 
stood each  other's  description  of  it,  I  had  entered  the  dugout 
he  had  lived  in  for  months  a  few  hours  after  he  so  hastily 
abandoned  it.  He  laughed  heartily  at  my  description  of 
the  food  we  had  found  still  on  the  stove;  he  had  been  cook 
himself  that  morning.  Every  one  knew,  he  asserted,  that 
the  St.-Mihiel  attack  was  coming,  two  weeks  before  it 
started,  but  no  one  had  expected  it  that  cold,  rainy  morning. 
On  the  strength  of  the  coincidence  we  had  discovered,  he 
proposed  me  as  an  honorary  member  of  the  Verein  for  the 

327 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

day,  and  the  nomination  was  quickly  and  unanimously 
accepted. 

We  loafed  on  through  the  perfect  early-summer  morning, 
a  soloist  striking  up  on  voice  and  instrument  now  and  then, 
the  whole  club  joining  frequently  in  some  old  German  song 
proposed  by  the  blind  leader,  halting  here  and  there  to  sit 
in  the  shade  of  a  grassy  slope,  pouring  pellmell  every  mile 
or  two  into  a  Gasthaus,  where  even  the  shy  little  girls  emptied 
their  half -liter  mugs  of  beer  without  an  effort.  One  of  the 
ex-soldiers  enlivened  the  stroll  by  giving  me  his  unexpurgated 
opinion  of  the  Prussians.  They  "hogged"  everything  they 
could  lay  their  hands  on,  he  grumbled.  Prussian  wounded 
sent  to  Bavaria  had  been  fed  like  princes;  Bavarians  who 
were  so  unfortunate  as  to  be  assigned  to  hospitals  in  Prussia — 
he  had  suffered  that  misfortune  himself — had  been  treated 
like  cattle  and  robbed  even  of  the  food  sent  them  from  home. 
He  "had  no  use  for"  die  verdammten  Preussen,  from  any 
viewpoint;  it  was  their  "big  men"  who  had  started  the 
war  in  the  first  place,  but  .  .  .  No,  indeed,  Bavaria  could 
not  afford  to  separate  from  Prussia.  She  had  no  coal  of 
her  own  and  she  had  no  seaport.  Business  interests  were 
too  closely  linked  together  through  all  the  Empire  to  make 
separation  possible.  It  would  be  cutting  their  own  throats. 

Toward  noon  we  reached  the  village  of  Neudrossenfeld, 
where  the  Verein  had  engaged  for  the  day  a  rambling  old 
country  inn,  with  a  spacious  dance-hall  above  an  outdoor 
Kegelbahn  for  those  who  bowled,  and  a  shady  arbor  over- 
looking a  vast  stretch  of  rolling  summer  landscape  for  those 
who  did  not,  in  the  garden  at  the  rear.  Other  glee  clubs, 
from  Kulmbach  and  another  neighboring  city,  had  occupied 
the  other  two  Gasthduser  and  every  even  semi-public  estab- 
lishment. The  town  resounded  from  one  end  to  the  other 
with  singing  and  playing,  with  laughter  and  dancing,  with 
the  clatter  of  ninepins  and  the  rattle  of  table  utensils.  A 
lone  stranger  without  glee-club  standing  would  have  been 

328 


MUSIC  STILL  HAS  CHARMS 

forced  to  plod  on,  hungry  and  thirsty.  I  spent  half  the 
afternoon  in  the  shady  arbor.  Several  of  the  girls  were  well 
worth  looking  at;  the  music,  not  being  over-ambitious, 
added  just  the  needed  touch  to  the  languid,  sun-flooded  day. 
One  could  not  but  be  struck  by  the  innocence  of  these 
typically  Bavarian  pleasures.  Not  a  suggestion  of  rowdy- 
ism, none  of  the  questionable  antics  of  similar  gatherings 
in  some  other  lands,  marred  the  amusements  of  these  child- 
like holiday-makers.  They  were  as  gentle-mannered  as 
the  tones  of  the  guitars,  zithers,  and  mandolins  they 
thrummed  so  diligently,  with  never  a  rude  word  or  act  even 
toward  hangers-on  like  myself.  Yet  there  was  a  bit  less 
gaiety  than  one  would  have  expected.  Even  the  youthful 
drifted  now  and  then  into  moods  of  sadness — or  was  it  mere 
apathy  due  to  their  long  lack  of  abundant  wholesome  food? 

The  philosophical  old  landlord  brought  us  a  word  of  wisdom 
with  each  double-handful  of  overflowing  beer-mugs.  "If 
ever  the  world  gets  reasonable  again,"  he  mused,  "the 
good  old  times  will  come  back — and  we  shall  be  able  to  serve 
real  beer  at  the  proper  price.  But  what  ideas  people  get 
into  their  Schadels  nowadays!  They  can  never  let  well 
enough  alone.  The  moment  man  gets  contented,  the 
moment  he  has  everything  as  it  should  be,  he  must  go  and 
start  something  and  tumble  it  all  into  a  heap  again." 

A  rumor  broke  out  that  cookies  were  being  sold  across 
the  street.  I  joined  the  foraging-party  that  quickly  fled 
from  the  arbor.  When  we  reached  the  house  of  the  enter- 
prising old  lady  who  had  mothered  this  brilliant  idea  it  was 
packed  with  clamoring  humanity  like  the  scene  of  the  latest 
crime  of  violence.  At  intervals  a  glee-clubber  catapulted 
out  of  the  mob,  grinning  gleefully  and  tenaciously  clutching 
in  one  hand  a  paper  sack  containing  three  of  the  precious 
Kuchen,  but  even  with  so  low  a  ration  the  producer  could 
not  begin  to  make  headway  against  the  feverish  demands. 
I  decided  that  I  could  not  justly  add  my  extraneous  com- 

329 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

petition  in  a  contest  that  meant  so  much  more  to  others  and, 
taking  my  leave  of  the  Sangerverein,  struck  off  again  to  the 
north. 

A  middle-aged  baker  from  Kulmbach,  who  had  been 
"hamstering"  all  day,  with  slight  success,  fell  in  with  me. 
He  had  that  pathetic,  uncomplaining  manner  of  so  many 
of  his  class,  seeming  to  lay  his  misfortunes  at  the  door  of 
some  power  too  high  to  be  reached  by  mere  human  protest. 
The  war  had  left  him  one  eye  and  a  weakened  physique. 
Two  Ersatz  teeth  gleamed  at  me  dully  whenever  his  wan 
smile  disclosed  them.  He  worked  nights,  and  earned  forty- 
eight  marks  a  week.  That  was  eighteen  more  than  he  had 
been  paid  before  the  war,  to  be  sure,  and  the  hours  were 
a  bit  shorter.  But  how  was  a  man  to  feed  a  wife  and  three 
children  on  forty -eight  marks,  with  present  prices;  would 
I  tell  him  that?  He  walked  his  legs  off  during  the  hours 
he  wished  to  be  sleeping,  and  often  came  home  without 
so  much  as  a  potato.  There  were  a  dozen  or  so  in  his  ruck- 
sack now,  and  he  had  tramped  more  than  thirty  kilometers. 
I  suggested  that  the  apples  would  be  large  enough  on  the 
trees  that  bordered  our  route  to  be  worth  picking  in  a 
couple  of  months.  He  gave  me  a  startled  glance,  as  if  I 
had  proposed  that  we  rob  a  bank  together.  The  apples 
along  public  highways,  he  explained  patiently,  were  property 
of  the  state.  No  one  but  those  the  government  sent  to 
pick  them  could  touch  them.  True,  hunger  was  driving 
people  to  strange  doings  these  days.  Guards  patrolled 
the  roads  now  when  the  apples  began  to  get  ripe.  Peasants 
had  to  protect  their  potato-fields  in  the  same  manner.  He, 
however,  would  remain  an  honest  man,  no  matter  what 
happened  to  him  or  to  his  wife  and  his  three  children. 
The  apparently  complete  absence  of  country  police  was 
one  of  the  things  I  had  often  wondered  at  during  my  tramp. 
The  baker  assured  me  that  none  were  needed,  except  in 
harvest  time.  He  had  never  seen  a  kodak  in  action.  He 

330 


MUSIC  STILL  HAS  CHARMS 

would  not  at  first  believe  that  it  could  catch  a  picture  in  an 
instant.  Surely  it  would  need  a  half -hour  or  so  to  get  down 
all  the  details!  Queer  people  Americans  must  be,  to  send 
men  out  through  the  world  just  to  get  pictures  of  simple 
country  people.  Still  he  wouldn't  mind  having  a  trade 
like  that  himself — if  it  were  not  for  his  wife  and  his  three 
children. 

Kulmbach,  noted  the  world  over  for  its  beer,  is  sur- 
rounded with  immense  breweries  as  with  a  medieval  city 
wall.  But  the  majority  of  them  stood  idle.  The  beverages 
to  be  had  in  its  Gasthauser,  too,  bore  little  resemblance  to 
the  rich  Kulmbacher  of  pre-war  days.  Thanks  perhaps  to 
its  industrial  character,  the  city  of  breweries  seemed  to  be 
even  shorter  of  food  than  Bayreuth;  or  it  may  be  that  its 
customary  supply  had  disappeared  during  the  celebration 
of  Assumption  Day.  The  meat-tickets  I  had  carried  all  the 
way  from  Munich  were  required  here  for  the  first  time. 
Some  very  appetizing  little  rolls  were  displayed  in  several 
shop- windows,  but  when  I  attempted  to  stock  up  on  them 
I  found  they  were  to  be  had  in  exchange  for  special  Marken, 
issued  to  Kulmbachers  only.  There  was  a  more  sinister, 
a  more  surly  air  about  Kulmbach,  with  its  garrison  of  Prus- 
sian-mannered soldiers  housed  in  a  great  fortress  on  a  hill 
towering  high  above  the  town,  than  I  had  thus  far  found  in 
Bavaria. 

As  I  sat  down  to  an  alleged  dinner  in  a  self-styled  hotel, 
my  attention  was  drawn  to  a  noisy  group  at  a  neighboring 
table.  I  stared  in  amazement,  not  so  much  because  the 
five  men  opposite  were  Italian  soldiers  in  the  uniform  with 
which  I  had  grown  so  familiar  during  my  service  on  the  Pado- 
van  plains  the  summer  before,  but  because  of  the  astonish- 
ing contrast  between  them  and  the  pale,  thin  Germans 
about  me.  The  traveler  grows  quickly  accustomed  to  any 
abnormality  of  type  of  the  people  among  whom  he  is  living. 
He  soon  forgets  that  they  look  different  from  other  people 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

until  suddenly  the  appearance  of  some  really  normal  being 
in  their  midst  brings  his  judgment  back  with  a  jerk  to  his 
customary  standards.  I  had  grown  to  think  of  the  Germans, 
particularly  the  Bavarians,  as  looking  quite  fit,  a  trifle  under 
weight  perhaps,  but  healthy  and  strong.  Now  all  at  once, 
in  comparison  with  these  ruddy,  plump,  animated  Italians, 
they  seemed  a  nation  of  invalids.  The  energetic  chatter 
of  the  visitors  brought  out  in  striking  relief  the  listless 
taciturnity  of  the  natives;  they  talked  more  in  an  hour 
than  I  had  ever  heard  all  Germany  do  in  a  day.  Meanwhile 
they  made  way  with  an  immense  bowlful  of — well,  what 
would  you  expect  Italians  to  be  eating?  Macaroni,  of 
course,  and  with  it  heaping  plates  of  meat,  vegetables,  and 
white  hard-bread  that  made  the  scant  fare  before  me  look 
like  a  phantom  meal.  I  called  the  landlady  aside  and 
asked  if  I  might  not  be  served  macaroni  also.  She  gave  me 
a  disgusted  look  and  informed  me  that  she  would  be  glad 
to  do  so — if  I  would  bring  it  with  me,  as  the  Italians  had. 
When  I  had  paid  my  absurd  bill  I  broke  in  upon  the  garru- 
lous southerners.  They  greeted  my  use  of  their  tongue 
with  a  lingual  uproar,  particularly  after  I  had  mentioned 
my  nationality,  but  quickly  cooled  again  with  a  reference 
to  Fiume,  and  satisfied  my  curiosity  only  to  the  extent  of 
stating  that  they  were  billeted  in  Kulmbach  "on  official 
business." 

I  sought  to  replenish  my  food-tickets  before  setting  out 
again  next  morning,  but  found  the  municipal  Lebensmit- 
telversorgung  packed  ten  rows  deep  with  disheveled  house- 
wives. Scientists  have  figured  it  out  that  the  human  body 
loses  twice  as  much  fat  standing  in  line  the  four  or  five 
hours  necessary  to  obtain  the  few  ounces  of  grease-products 
issued  weekly  on  the  German  food  ration  as  the  applicant 
receives  for  his  trouble.  The  housewife,  they  assert,  who 
remains  in  bed  instead  of  entering  the  contest  gains  ma- 
terially by  her  conservation  of  energy.  In  other  words, 

332 


MUSIC  STILL  HAS  CHARMS 

apparently,  it  would  have  been  better  for  the  Fatherland — 
to  say  nothing  of  the  rest  of  the  world — had  the  entire 
nation  insisted  on  sleeping  during  the  five  years  that  turned 
humanity  topsy-turvy.  Millions  agree  with  them.  But 
for  once  the  German  populace  declines  to  accept  the  asser- 
tions of  higher  authorities  and  persists  in  wearing  itself 
out  by  its  struggles  to  obtain  food.  However  short-sighted 
this  policy  may  be  on  the  part  of  the  natives,  it  is  certain 
that  the  tail-end  of  a  multitude  besieging  a  food-ticket  dis- 
pensary is  no  place  for  a  traveler  gifted  with  scant  patience 
and  a  tendency  to  profanity,  and  I  left  Kulmbach  behind 
hours  before  I  could  have  hoped  to  reach  the  laborious 
officials  who  dealt  out  legal  permission  to  eat. 

A  General  Staff  map  in  several  sheets,  openly  sold  in  the 
shops  and  giving  every  cowpath  of  the  region,  made  it 
possible  for  me  to  set  a  course  due  north  by  compass  over 
the  almost  mountainous  region  beyond.  "Roads"  little 
more  deserving  the  name  than  those  of  the  Andes  led  me 
up  and  down  across  fertile  fields,  through  deep-wooded 
valleys,  and  into  cozy  little  country  villages  tucked  away 
in  delightful  corners  of  the  landscape.  Even  in  these  the 
peasant  inhabitants  complained  of  the  scarcity  of  food, 
and  for  the  most  part  declined  to  sell  anything.  They 
recalled  the  South  American  Indian  again  in  their  trans- 
parent ruses  to  explain  the  visible  presence  of  foodstuffs. 
Ducks,  geese,  and  chickens,  here  and  there  guinea-fowls, 
peacocks,  rabbits,  not  to  mention  pigs,  sheep,  and  cattle, 
enlivened  the  village  lanes  and  the  surrounding  meadows, 
but  every  suggestion  of  meat  brought  from  innkeepers  and 
shopkeepers  clumsy,  non-committal  replies.  At  one  Gast- 
haus  where  I  had  been  refused  anything  but  beer  I  opened  by 
design  the  wrong  door  at  my  exit,  and  stared  with  amaze- 
ment at  four  heaping  bushel  baskets  of  eggs,  a  score  of  grind- 
stone-shaped cheeses,  and  an  abundant  supply  of  other 
local  products  that  all  but  completely  filled  what  I  had 

333 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

correctly  surmised  was  the  family  storeroom.  "They  are 
not  ours,"  exclaimed  the  landlady,  hastily;  "they  belong 
to  others,  who  will  not  permit  us  to  sell  anything."  Her 
competitor  across  the  street  was  more  hospitable,  but  the 
anticipations  I  unwisely  permitted  his  honeyed  words  to 
arouse  were  sadly  wrecked  when  the  "dinner"  he  promised 
stopped  abruptly  at  a  watery  soup,  with  a  meager  serving 
of  real  bread  and  butter.  Another  village  astonished  me  by 
yielding  a  whole  half-pound  of  cheese;  it  boasted  a  Kuh- 
kaserei — what  we  might  call  a  "cow  cheesery" — that  was 
fortunately  out  of  proportion  to  its  transportation  facilities. 
Rodach,  at  the  bottom  of  a  deep  cleft  in  the  hills  where  my 
route  crossed  the  main  railway  line  to  the  south,  had  several 
by  no  means  empty  shops.  I  canvassed  them  all  without 
reward,  except  that  one  less  hard-hearted  soul  granted  me 
a  scoopful  of  the  mysterious  purple  "marmalade"  which, 
with  the  possible  exception  of  turnips,  seemed  to  be  the  only 
plentiful  foodstuff  in  Germany.  But  has  the  reader  ever 
carried  a  pint  of  marmalade,  wrapped  in  a  sheet  of  porous 
paper,  over  ten  miles  of  mountainous  byways  on  a  warm 
summer  afternoon?  If  not,  may  I  not  be  permitted  to 
insist,  out  of  the  fullness  of  experience,  that  it  is  far  wiser 
to  swallow  the  sickly  stuff  on  the  spot,  without  hoping  in 
vain  to  find  bread  to  accompany  it,  or,  indeed,  to  smear  it 
on  some  convenient  house-wall,  than  to  undertake  that 
hazardous  feat? 

In  short,  my  travels  were  growing  more  and  more  a  con- 
stant foraging  expedition,  with  success  never  quite  over- 
hauling appetite.  The  country,  indeed,  was  changing  in 
character,  and  with  it  the  inhabitants.  I  had  entered  a 
region  noted  for  its  slate  quarries,  and  in  place  of  the  attrac- 
tive little  villages,  with  their  red-tile  roofs  and  masses  of 
flowering  bushes,  there  came  dismal,  slate-built  black 
hamlets,  almost  treeless  in  setting  and  peopled  by  less 
progressive,  more  slovenly  citizens.  The  only  public  hostess 

334 


MUSIC  STILL  HAS  CHARMS 

of  Lahm  refused  to  take  me  in  for  the  night  because  her  hus- 
band was  not  at  home,  a  circumstance  for  which  I  was  duly 
thankful  after  one  glimpse  of  her  slatternly  household.  A 
mile  or  more  farther  on  my  eyes  were  drawn  to  an  unusual 
sight.  An  immense  rounded  hillock  ahead  stood  forth  in 
the  sunset  like  an  enameled  landscape  painted  in  daring 
lilac-purple  hues.  When  I  reached  it  I  found  acres  upon 
acres  closely  grown  with  that  species  of  wild  pansy  which 
American  children  call  "snap-heads."  Similar  fields  fol- 
lowed, until  the  entire  country-side  had  taken  on  the -same 
curious  color,  and  the  breeze  blowing  across  it  carried  to 
the  nostrils  a  perfume  almost  overpowering  in  its  intensity. 
They  were  not,  as  I  supposed,  meadows  lying  fallow  and 
overrun  with  a  useless,  if  attractive,  weed,  but  another 
example  of  the  German's  genius  for  discovering  Ersatz 
species  of  nourishment.  Sown  like  wheat  in  the  spring,  the 
flowers  were  harvested,  stem  and  all,  in  the  autumn,  and 
sent  to  Hamburg  to  be  made  into  "tea." 

Effelter  was  as  black  as  any  African  tribe,  but  its  Gasihaus 
was  homelike  enough  within.  By  the  time  darkness  had 
thoroughly  fallen  its  every  table  was  closely  surrounded 
by  oxlike,  hob-nailed  countrymen  who  had  stamped  in, 
singly  or  in  small  groups,  as  the  last  daylight  faded  away. 
The  innkeeper  and  his  family  strove  in  vain  to  keep  every 
mug  filled,  and  sprinkled  the  floor  from  end  to  end  with 
drippings  of  beer.  The  town  was  Catholic.  While  the 
church-bell  tolled  the  end  of  evening  vespers,  the  entire 
gathering  sat  silently,  with  bared  heads,  as  is  the  Bavarian 
custom,  but  once  the  tolling  had  ceased  they  did  not  resume 
their  interrupted  conversation.  Instead  they  rose  as  one 
man  and,  each  carrying  his  beer-mug,  filed  solemnly  across 
the  hallway  into  an  adjoining  room.  The  landlord  dis- 
appeared with  them,  and  I  was  left  entirely  alone,  except 
for  one  horny-handed  man  of  fifty  at  my  own  table.  He 
slid  bit  by  bit  along  the  bench  on  which  we  both  sat,  until 

335 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

his  elbow  touched  mine,  and  entered  into  conversation  by 
proffering  some  remark  in  the  crippled  dialect  of  the 
region  about  the  close  connection  between  crops  and 
weather. 

From  the  adjoining  room  rose  sounds  of  untrained  oratory, 
mingled  with  the  dull  clinking  of  beer-mugs.  The  innkeeper 
and  his  family  had  by  no  means  abandoned  their  service  of 
supply;  they  had  merely  laid  out  a  new  line  of  communica- 
tion between  spigots  and  consumers.  Gradually  the  orderly 
discussion  became  a  dispute,  then  an  uproar  in  which  a 
score  of  raucous  voices  joined.  I  looked  questioningly  at 
my  companion. 

"They  are  electing  a  new  Burgemeister,"  he  explained, 
interrupting  a  question  he  was  asking  about  the  "peasants" 
of  America.  "It  is  always  a  fight  between  the  Burger  and 
the  Arbeiter — the  citizens  and  the  workers — in  which  the 
workers  always  win  in  the  end." 

One  could  easily  surmise  in  which  class  he  claimed  mem- 
bership by  the  scornful  tone  in  which  he  pronounced  the 
word  "citizen." 

"I  live  in  another  town,"  he  added,  when  I  expressed 
surprise  that  he  remained  with  me  in  the  unlighted  Gast- 
zimmer  instead  of  joining  his  fellows. 

I  slipped  out  into  the  hallway  and  glanced  in  upon  the 
disputants.  A  powerful  young  peasant  stood  in  an  open 
space  between  the  tables,  waving  his  beer-mug  over  his  head 
with  a  gesture  worthy  of  the  Latin  race,  at  the  same  time 
shouting  some  tirade  against  the  "citizens."  An  older  man, 
somewhat  better  dressed,  pounded  the  table  with  his  empty 
glass  and  bellowed  repeatedly:  ' 'Na,  da'  is'  giene  Wahrhied! 
Da1  is'  giene  Wahrhied,  na!"  The  other  twoscore  electors 
sipped  their  beer  placidly  and  added  new  clouds  to  the  blue 
haze  of  tobacco  smoke  that  already  half  hid  the  gathering, 
only  now  and  then  adding  their  voices  to  the  dispute.  It 
was  evident  that  the  youthful  Arbeiter  had  the  great  majority 

336 


MUSIC  STILL  HAS  CHARMS 

with  him.  As  I  turned  away,  my  eyes  caught  a  detail  of 
the  election  that  had  so  far  escaped  my  attention.  In  a 
corner  of  the  hallway,  huddled  closely  together,  stood  a 
score  or  more  of  women,  dressed  in  the  gloomy  all-black  of 
church  service,  peering  curiously  into  the  room  where  their 
husbands  smoked,  drank,  and  disputed,  and  preserving  the 
most  absolute  silence. 

I  mentioned  the  detail  to  my  companion  of  the  guest- 
room, recalling  frequent  assertions  by  Germans  in  a  posi- 
tion to  know  that  the  women  had  been  quick  to  take  ad- 
vantage of  the  granting  of  equal  suffrage  to  both  sexes  by 
the  new  "republican"  government. 

"Certainly,"  he  replied,  "they  have  the  right  to  vote, 
but  the  German  Frau  has  not  lost  her  character.  She  is 
still  satisfied  to  let  her  man  speak  for  her.  Oh  yes,  to  be 
sure,  in  the  large  cities  there  are  women  who  insist  on  voting 
for  themselves.  But  then,  in  the  cities  there  are  women 
who  insist  on  smoking  cigarettes!" 

In  contrast  with  this  conservative,  rural  viewpoint  I 
have  been  assured  by  persons  worthy  of  credence  that  in 
the  more  populous  centers  some  80  per  cent,  of  the  women 
flocked  to  the  polls  for  the  first  election  in  which  suffrage 
was  granted  them. 

An  Arbeiter  was  eventually  elected  burgmaster  of  Ef- 
felter,  as  the  non-resident  had  prophesied,  but  not  until 
long  after  I  had  retired  to  a  bedroom  above  the  place  of 
meeting.  The  vocal  uproar  intruded  for  some  time  upon 
my  dreams  and  mingled  fantastically  with  them.  From  the 
dull  clinking  of  mugs  that  continued  far  into  the  night  it 
was  easy  to  surmise  that  the  evening  election  turned  out 
to  the  complete  satisfaction,  at  least,  of  the  innkeeper  and 
his  family. 

My  route  next  morning  lay  along  the  top  of  a  high  pla- 
teau, wooded  in  places,  but  by  no  means  such  an  Andean 
wilderness  of  forest  and  mountain  as  that  which  spread 

337 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

away  to  the  horizon  on  the  left,  across  a  great  chasm,  in  the 
direction  of  Teuschnitz.  Black  hills  of  slate  stood  here 
and  there  tumbled  together  in  disorderly  heaps.  Tschirn, 
the  last  town  of  Bavaria,  laid  out  on  a  bare  sloping  hillside 
as  if  on  display  as  a  curiosity  in  the  world's  museum,  was 
jet-black  from  end  to  end.  Not  merely  were  its  walls  and 
roofs  covered  with  slate,  but  its  very  foundations  and 
cobblestones,  even  the  miniature  lake  in  its  outskirts,  were 
slate-black  in  color. 

It  was  in  Tschirn  that  I  discovered  I  had  been  "over- 
looking a  bet"  on  the  food  question — experience,  alas!  so 
often  arrives  too  late  to  be  of  value!  The  innkeepess  to 
whom  I  murmured  some  hint  about  lunch  shook  her  head 
without  looking  up  from  her  ironing,  but  a  moment  later 
she  added,  casually: 

"You  passed  the  butcher's  house  a  few  yards  down  the 
hill,  and  to-day  is  Saturday." 

The  last  day  of  the  week,  I  had  been  slow  in  discovering, 
was  meat  day  in  most  of  the  smaller  towns  of  Germany. 
I  grasped  at  the  hint  and  hastened  down  to  the  slate-faced 
Metzgerei.  As  I  thrust  my  head  in  at  the  door,  the  Fal- 
staffian  butcher  paused  with  his  cleaver  in  the  air  and  rum- 
bled, "Ha!  Bin  ganz  Fremder!"  ("A  total  stranger").  The 
carcass  of  a  single  steer  was  rapidly  disappearing  under  his 
experienced  hands  into  the  baskets  of  the  citizens  who 
formed  a  line  at  the  home-made  counter.  As  each  received 
his  portion  and  added  his  meat-tickets  to  the  heap  that 
already  overflowed  a  cigar-box,  the  butcher  marked  a 
name  off  the  list  that  lay  before  him.  I  drew  out  the 
Anmeldungskarte  I  had  received  in  Berlin,  by  no  means 
hopeful  that  it  would  be  honored  in  a  Bavarian  mountain 
village.  The  butcher  glanced  at  it,  read  the  penciled 
"Daiiernd  auf  Reise"  ("Always  traveling")  at  the  top,  and 
handed  it  back  to  me.  The  regulations  required  that  I 
present  the  document  to  the  Burgermeister,  who  would  issue 

338 


MUSIC  STILL  HAS  CHARMS 

me  meat-tickets  to  be  in  turn  handed  to  the  butcher;  but 
it  happened  that  the  Burgermeister  and  butcher  of  Tschirn 
were  one  and  the  same  person. 

"Amerikaner,  eh!"  he  cried,  hospitably,  at  once  giving 
me  precedence  over  his  fellow-townsmen,  whose  stares  had 
doubled  at  the  revelation  of  my  nationality.  "Na,  they 
say  it  is  always  meat  day  in  America!" 

He  carefully  selected  the  best  portion  of  the  carcass, 
cut  it  through  the  center  to  get  the  choicest  morsel,  and 
slashed  off  an  appetizing  tenderloin  that  represented  the 
two  hundred  grams  of  the  weekly  meat  ration  of  Tschirn  so 
exactly  that  the  scales  teetered  for  several  seconds.  Then 
he  added  another  slice  that  brought  the  weight  up  to  a 
generous  half-pound  and  threw  in  a  nubbin  of  suet  for 
good  measure. 

"Making  just  two  marks,"  he  announced,  wrapping  it  up 
in  a  sheet  of  the  local  newspaper.  "That  will  put  kick  in 
your  legs  for  a  day  or  two — if  you  watch  the  cook  that 
prepares  it  for  you." 

There  was  nothing  to  indicate  where  Bavaria  ended  and 
Saxe- Weimar  began,  except  the  sudden  appearance  of  blue 
post-boxes  instead  of  yellow,  and  the  change  in  beer.  This 
jumped  all  at  once  from  sixteen  pfennigs  a  mug  to  twenty- 
five,  thirty,  and,  before  the  day  was  done,  to  forty,  at  the 
same  time  deteriorating  in  size  and  quality  so  rapidly  that 
I  took  to  patronizing  hillside  springs  instead  of  wayside 
taverns.  At  the  first  town  over  the  border  I  found  the 
municipal  ration  official  at  leisure  and  laid  in  a  new  supply 
of  food-tickets.  My  week's  allowance  of  butter,  sugar, 
and  lard  I  bought  on  the  spot,  since  those  particular  Marken 
were  good  only  in  specified  local  shops.  The  purchases 
did  not  add  materially  to  the  weight  of  my  knapsack.  I 
confess  to  having  cheated  the  authorities  a  bit,  too,  for  I 
had  suddenly  discovered  a  loophole  in  the  iron-clad  German 
rationing  system.  The  jolly  butcher-mayor  of  Tschirn 
23  339 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

had  neglected  to  note  on  my  "travel-sheet"  the  tenderloin 
he  had  issued  me.  Meat-tickets  were  therefore  furnished 
with  the  rest — and  I  accepted  them  without  protest.  Had 
all  officials  been  as  obliging  as  he  I  might  have  played  the 
same  passive  trick  in  every  town  I  passed.  But  the  clerks 
of  the  Saxe-Weimar  municipality  decorated  my  precious 
document  in  a  thoroughly  German  manner  with  the  in- 
formation that  I  had  been  supplied  all  the  tickets  to  which 
I  was  entitled  for  the  ensuing  week.  That  Saturday,  how- 
ever, was  a  Gargantuan  period,  and  a  vivid  contrast  to  the 
hungry  day  before;  for  barely  had  I  received  this  new 
collection  of  Marken  when  an  innkeeper  served  me  a  gener- 
ous meat  dinner  without  demanding  any  of  them. 

A  tramp  through  the  Thuringian  highlands,  with  their 
deep,  blackwooded  valleys  and  glorious  hilltops  bathed 
in  the  cloudless  sunshine  of  early  summer,  their  flower- 
scented  breezes  and  pine-perfumed  woodlands,  would  con- 
vert to  pedestrianism  the  most  sedentary  of  mortals.  Laasen 
was  still  slate-black,  like  a  village  in  deep  mourning,  but 
the  next  town,  seen  far  off  across  a  valley  in  its  forest  frame, 
was  gay  again  under  the  familiar  red-tile  roofs.  With 
sunset  I  reached  Saalfeld,  a  considerable  city  in  a  broad 
lowland,  boasting  a  certain  grimy  industrial  progress  and 
long  accustomed  to  batten  on  tourists.  In  these  untraveled 
days  it  was  sadly  down  at  heel,  and  had  a  grasping  dis- 
position that  made  it  far  less  agreeable  than  the  simple  little 
towns  behind  that  earn  their  own  honest  living.  Food,  of 
course,  was  scarce  and  poor,  and,  as  is  always  the  case, 
the  more  one  paid  for  it  the  more  exacting  was  the  demand 
for  tickets.  A  hawk-faced  hostess  charged  me  twice  as 
much  for  boiling  the  meat  I  had  brought  with  me  as  I  had 
paid  for  it  in  Tschirn. 

Sunday  had  come  again.  The  cities,  therefore,  were  all 
but  forsaken  and  my  hob-nails  echoed  resoundingly  through 
the  stone-paved  streets.  Their  inhabitants  one  found 

340 


MUSIC  STILL  HAS  CHARMS 

miles  beyond,  "hamstering"  the  country-side  or  holidaying 
with  song,  dancing,  and  beer  in  the  little  villages  higher  up 
among  the  hills.  The  habitual  tramp,  however,  was  no- 
where to  be  seen;  the  Great  War  has  driven  him  from  the 
highways  of  Europe.  An  occasional  band  of  gipsies, 
idling  about  their  little  houses  on  wheels,  in  some  shaded 
glen,  or  peering  out  through  their  white-curtained  windows, 
were  the  only  fellow-vagabonds  I  met  during  all  my  German 
tramp.  I  talked  with  several  of  them,  but  they  were  un- 
usually wary  of  tongue,  taking  me  perhaps  for  a  government 
spy;  hence  there  was  no  way  of  knowing  whether  their 
fiery-eyed  assertion  of  patriotism  was  truth  or  pretense. 

My  last  village  host  was  a  man  of  far  more  culture  than 
the  average  peasant  innkeeper.  In  his  youth  he  had 
attended  the  Real  Schule  of  Weimar.  But  Germany  is  not 
America  in  its  opportunity  to  climb  the  ladder  of  success 
irrespective  of  caste  and  origin,  and  he  had  drifted  back  to 
his  turnip-fields  and  a  slattern  household  strangely  out  of 
keeping  with  his  clear-thinking  mental  equipment.  He 
had  gone  through  the  entire  war  as  a  private,  which  fact 
of  itself  was  a  striking  commentary  on  the  depressing 
caste  system  of  the  German  army.  Yet  there  was  not  the 
slightest  hint  in  his  speech  or  manner  to  suggest  that  he 
resented  what  would  have  been  branded  a  crying  injustice 
in  a  more  democratic  land.  A  society  of  solidified  strata 
he  seemed  to  find  natural  and  unavoidable.  The  goddess 
of  chance  had  been  more  kind  to  him  than  had  his  fellow- 
men.  Four  unbroken  years  he  had  served  in  the  trenches, 
on  every  front,  yet  though  he  towered  1.87  meters  aloft, 
or  an  inch  above  the  regulation  German  parapet,  his  only 
wound  was  a  tiny  nick  in  the  lobe  of  an  ear.  Gas,  how- 
ever, had  left  him  hollow- chested  and  given  him,  during  his 
frequent  spasms  of  coughing,  a  curious  resemblance  to  a 
shepherd's  crook. 

The  thoroughness  with  which  Germany  utilized  her 

341 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

man-power  during  the  war  was  personified  in  this  human 
pine-tree  of  the  Weimar  hills.  He  had  been  granted  just 
two  furloughs — of  six  and  fourteen  days,  respectively. 
Both  of  them  he  had  spent  in  his  fields,  laboring  from  dawn 
to  dark,  for,  as  he  put  it,  "the  women  were  never  able  to 
keep  up  with  the  crops."  His  only  grievance  against  fate, 
however,  was  the  setback  it  had  given  the  education  of 
his  children.  Since  1914  his  boys  had  received  only  four 
hours  of  schooling  a  week — as  to  the  girls  he  said  nothing, 
as  if  they  did  not  matter.  The  teachers  had  all  gone  to  war ; 
the  village  pastor  had  done  his  best  to  take  the  place  of 
six  of  them.  Women,  he  admitted,  might  have  made 
tolerable  substitutes,  but  in  Germany  that  was  not  the 
custom  and  they  had  never  been  prepared  to  teach.  The 
optimistic  American  attitude  of  overlooking  the  lack  of 
specific  preparation  when  occasion  demanded  has  no  cham- 
pions in  the  Fatherland,  where  professions,  as  well  as  trades, 
are  taken  with  racial  seriousness.  The  end  of  the  war,  he 
complained,  with  the  only  suggestion  of  bitterness  he  dis- 
played during  a  long  evening,  had  found  him  with  a  son 
"going  on  twelve"  who  could  barely  spell  out  the  simplest 
words  and  could  not  reckon  up  the  cost  of  a  few  mugs  of 
beer  without  using  his  fingers. 


XVI 

FLYING   HOMEWARD 

next  afternoon  found  me  descending  the  great  av- 
•*•  enue  of  chestnuts,  white  then  with  blossoms,  that  leads 
from  the  Belvedere  into  the  city  of  Weimar.  The  period 
was  that  between  two  sittings  of  the  National  Assembly 
in  this  temporary  capital  of  the  new  German  Volksreich, 
and  the  last  residence  of  Goethe,  had  sunk  again  into  its 
normal  state — that  of  a  leisurely,  dignified,  old  provincial 
town,  more  engrossed  with  its  local  cares  than  with  problems 
of  world-wide  significance.  Self-seeking  "representatives 
of  the  people,"  frock-tailed  bureaucrats,  scurrying  corre- 
spondents from  the  four  corners  of  the  earth  and  the  flocks 
of  hangers-on  which  these  unavoidable  appendages  of 
modern  society  inevitably  bring  in  their  train,  had  all  fled 
Berlinward.  Weimar  had  been  restored  to  her  own  simple 
people,  except  that  one  of  her  squares  swarmed  with  the 
Jews  of  Leipzig,  who  had  set  up  here  their  booths  for  an 
annual  fair  and  awakened  all  the  surrounding  echoes  with 
their  strident  bargainings. 

The  waiter  who  served  me  in  a  hotel  which  the  fleeing 
Assembly  had  left  forlorn  and  gloomy  was  a  veteran  Feld- 
webel  and  a  radical  Socialist.  The  combination  gave  his 
point  of  view  curious  twists.  He  raged  fiercely  against  the 
lack  of  discipline  of  the  new  German  army  of  volunteers. 
The  damage  they  had  done  to  billets  they  had  recently 
abandoned  he  pictured  to  me  with  tears  in  his  watery  eyes. 

343 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

Did  I  imagine  the  men  who  served  under  him  had  ever 
dared  commit  such  depredations?  Could  I  believe  for  an 
instant  that  his  soldiers  had  ever  passed  an  officer  without 
saluting  him?  Ausgeschlossen!  He  would  have  felled  the 
entire  company,  like  cattle  in  a  slaughter-house !  Yet  in  the 
same  breath  he  gave  vent  to  Utopian  theories  that  implied 
a  human  perfection  fit  for  thrumming  harps  on  the  golden 
stairs  of  the  dreary  after-world  of  the  theologians.  Man 
in  the  mass,  he  asserted,  was  orderly  and  obedient,  ready 
to  make  his  desires  subservient  to  the  welfare  of  society. 
It  was  only  the  few  evil  spirits  in  each  gathering  who  stirred 
up  the  rest  to  deeds  of  communal  misfortune.  The  mass  of 
workmen  wished  only  to  pursue  their  labors  in  peace;  but 
the  evil  spirits  forced  them  to  strike.  Soldiers,  even  the 
volunteer  soldiers  of  the  new  order  of  things  that  was 
breaking  upon  the  world,  wished  nothing  so  much  as  to  be 
real  soldiers;  but  they  were  led  astray  by  the  fiends  in 
human  form  among  them.  These  latter  must  be  segregated 
and  destroyed,  root  and  branch. 

I  broke  in  upon  his  dreams  to  ask  if  he  could  not,  perhaps, 
round  up  a  pair  of  eggs  somewhere. 

"Eggs,  my  dear  sir!"  he  cried,  raising  both  arms  aloft  and 
dropping  them  inertly  at  his  sides.  "Before  the  National 
Assembly  came  to  Weimar  we  bought  them  anywhere  for 
thirty  pfennigs,  or  at  most  thirty -five.  Then  came  the 
swarms  of  politicians  and  bureaucrats — it  is  the  same  old 
capitalistic  government,  for  all  its  change  of  coat — every 
last  little  one  of  them  with  an  allowance  of  thirty  marks  a 
day  for  expenses,  on  top  of  their  generous  salaries.  It  is 
a  lucky  man  who  finds  an  egg  in  the  whole  dukedom  now, 
even  if  he  pays  two  marks  for  it." 

My  German  tramp  ended  at  Weimar.  Circumstances 
required  that  I  catch  a  steamer  leaving  Rotterdam  for 
the  famous  port  of  Hoboken  three  days  later,  and  to  accom- 
plish that  feat  meant  swift  movement  and  close  connections. 

344 


FLYING  HOMEWARD 

The  most  rapid,  if  not  the  most  direct,  route  lay  through 
Berlin.  Trains  are  never  too  certain  in  war-time,  however, 
and  I  concluded  to  leave  the  delay-provoking  earth  and 
take  to  the  air. 

There  was  a  regular  airplane  mail  service  between  Weimar 
and  Berlin,  three  times  a  day  in  each  direction,  with  room 
for  a  passenger  or  two  on  each  trip.  The  German  may 
not  forgive  his  enemies,  but  he  is  quite  ready  to  do  business 
with  them,  to  clothe  them  or  to  fly  them,  to  meet  any 
demand  of  a  possible  customer,  whatever  his  origin.  He 
still  tempers  his  manners  to  outward  appearances,  however, 
for  the  great  leaden  god  of  caste  sits  heavily  upon  him,  in 
spite  of  his  sudden  conversion  to  democracy.  Turn  up 
at  his  office  in  tramping  garb  and  you  are  sure  to  be  received 
like  the  beggar  at  the  gate.  Whisper  in  his  ear  that  you 
are  prepared  to  pay  four  hundred  and  fifty  marks  for  the 
privilege  of  sitting  two  hours  in  his  airplane  express  and 
he  grovels  at  your  feet. 

The  price  was  high,  but  it  would  have  been  several  times 
more  so  for  those  unable  to  buy  their  marks  at  the  foreign 
rate  of  exchange.  A  swift  military  automobile  called  for 
me  at  the  hotel  next  morning,  picking  up  a  captain  in  mufti 
next  door,  who  welcomed  me  in  a  manner  befitting  the 
ostensible  fatness  of  my  purse.  On  the  way  to  the  flying- 
field,  several  miles  out,  we  gathered  two  youthful  lieutenants 
in  civilian  garb  and  slouchy  caps,  commonplace  in  appear- 
ance as  professional  truck-drivers.  The  captain  intro- 
duced me  to  them,  emphasizing  my  nationality,  and  stating 
that  they  were  the  pilot  and  pathfinder,  respectively,  who 
were  to  accompany  me  on  my  journey.  They  raised  their 
caps  and  bowed  ceremoniously.  The  pilot  had  taken  part 
in  seven  raids  on  Paris  and  four  on  London,  but  the  biplane 
that  was  already  fanning  the  air  in  its  eagerness  to  be  off 
had  seen  service  only  on  the  eastern  front.  It  still  bore 
all  the  military  markings  and  a  dozen  patched  bullet-holes 

345 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

in  wings  and  tail.  The  captain  turned  me  over  to  a  middle- 
aged  woman  in  an  anteroom  of  the  hangar,  who  tucked  me 
solicitously  into  a  flying-suit,  that  service  being  included 
in  the  price  of  the  trip. 

Flying  had  become  so  commonplace  an  experience  that 
this  simple  journey  warrants  perhaps  no  more  space  than  a 
train-ride.  Being  my  own  first  departure  from  the  solid 
earth,  however,  it  took  on  a  personal  interest  that  was 
enhanced  by  the  ruthlessness  with  which  my  layman  impres- 
sions were  shattered.  I  had  always  supposed,  for  instance, 
that  passengers  of  the  air  were  tucked  snugly  into  uphol- 
stered seats  and  secured  from  individual  mishap  by  some 
species  of  leather  harness.  Not  at  all !  When  my  knapsack 
had  been  tossed  into  the  cockpit — where  there  was  room  for 
a  steamer-trunk  or  two — the  pathfinder  motioned  to  me  to 
climb  in  after  it.  I  did  so,  and  gazed  about  me  in  amaze- 
ment. Upholstered  seats  indeed!  Two  loose  boards,  a 
foot  wide  and  rudely  gnawed  off  on  the  ends  by  some  species 
of  Ersatz  saw,  teetered  insecurely  on  the  two  frail  strips 
of  wood  that  half  concealed  the  steering-wires.  Now  and 
then,  during  the  journey,  they  slipped  off  at  one  end  or  the 
other,  giving  the  ride  an  annoying  resemblance  to  a  jolting 
over  country  roads  in  a  farm  wagon.  One  might  at  least 
have  been  furnished  a  cushion,  at  two  hundred  and  twenty- 
five  marks  an  hour! 

The  pathfinder  took  his  seat  on  one  of  the  boards  and  I 
on  the  other.  Behind  me  was  a  stout  strap,  attached  to 
the  framework  of  the  machine. 

"I  suppose  I  am  to  put  this  around  me?"  I  remarked,  as 
casually  as  possible,  picking  up  the  dangling  strip  of  leather. 

"Oh  no,  you  won't  need  that,"  replied  my  companion 
of  the  cockpit,  absently.  "We  are  not  going  high;  not  over 
a  thousand  meters  or  so."  He  spoke  as  if  a  little  drop  of 
that  much  would  do  no  one  any  harm. 

The  silly  notion  flashed  through  my  head  that  perhaps 

346 


FLYING  HOMEWARD 

these  wicked  Huns  were  planning  to  flip  me  out  somewhere 
along  the  way,  an  absurdity  which  a  second  glance  at  the 
pathfinder's  seat,  as  insecure  as  my  own,  smothered  in  ridi- 
cule. There  was  no  mail  and  no  other  passenger  than  myself 
that  morning.  Regular  service  means  just  that,  with  the 
German,  and  the  flight  would  have  started  promptly  at 
nine  even  had  I  not  been  there  to  offset  the  cost  of  gasolene 
at  two  dollars  a  quart.  We  roared  deafeningly,  crawled  a 
few  yards,  sped  faster  and  faster  across  a  long  field,  the  tall 
grass  bowing  prostrate  as  we  passed,  rose  imperceptibly 
into  the  air  and,  circling  completely  around,  sailed  majesti- 
cally over  a  tiny  toy  house  that  had  been  a  huge  hangar 
a  moment  before,  and  were  away  into  the  north. 

Like  all  long-imagined  experiences  this  one  was  far  less 
exciting  in  realization  than  in  anticipation.  At  the  start 
I  felt  a  slight  tremor,  about  equal  to  the  sensation  of  turn- 
ing a  corner  a  bit  too  swiftly  in  an  automobile.  Now  and 
then,  as  I  peered  over  the  side  at  the  shrunken  earth,  the 
reflection  flashed  upon  me  that  there  was  nothing  but 
air  for  thousands  of  feet  beneath  us;  but  the  thought  was 
no  more  terrifying  than  the  average  person  feels  toward 
water  when  he  first  sails  out  to  sea.  By  the  time  Weimar 
had  disappeared  I  felt  as  comfortably  at  home  as  if  I  had 
been  seated  on  the  floor  of  a  jolting  box-car — the  parallel 
is  chosen  advisedly.  I  glanced  through  the  morning  paper, 
scribbled  a  few  belated  notes,  and  exchanged  casual  remarks 
in  sign  language  with  my  companion. 

The  roar  of  the  machine  made  conversation  impossible. 
Whenever  a  new  town  of  any  importance  appeared  on  the 
animated  relief  map  far  below  us,  the  pathfinder  thrust  a 
thumb  downward  at  it  and  pointed  the  place  out  on  the 
more  articulate  paper  map  in  his  hands.  The  view  was  much 
the  same  as  that  from  the  brow  of  a  high  mountain.  I 
knew  a  dozen  headlands  in  the  Andes  below  which  the 
world  spread  out  in  this  same  entrancing  entirety,  except 

347 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

that  here  the  performance  was  continuous  rather  than 
stationary,  as  a  cinema  film  is  different  from  a  "still" 
picture.  To  say  that  the  earth  lay  like  a  carpet  beneath 
would  be  no  trite  comparison.  It  resembled  nothing  so 
much  as  that — a  rich  Persian  carpet  worked  with  all  man- 
ner of  fantastic  figures ;  unless  it  more  exactly  imitated  the 
"crazy-quilt"  of  our  grandmothers'  day,  with  the  same 
curiously  shaped  patches  of  every  conceivable  form  and 
almost  every  known  color.  Here  were  long  narrow  strips 
of  brilliant  green ;  there,  irregular  squares  of  flowery  purple- 
red;  beyond,  mustard-yellow  insets  of  ridiculously  mis- 
shapen outlines;  farther  off,  scraps  of  daisy -white,  and  be- 
tween them  all  velvety  brown  patches  that  only  experience 
could  have  recognized  as  plowed  fields.  I  caught  myself 
musing  as  to  how  long  it  would  be  before  enterprising  man- 
kind took  to  shaping  the  surface  of  the  earth  to  commercial 
purposes,  advising  the  airmen  by  the  form  of  the  meadows 
to  "Stop  at  Muller's  for  gas  and  oil,"  or  to  "See  Smith  for 
wings  and  propellers."  All  the  scraps  of  the  rag-bag  had 
been  utilized  by  the  thrifty  quilt-maker.  Corn-fields  looked 
like  stray  bits  of  green  corduroy  cloth;  wheat-fields  like  the 
remnants  of  an  old  khaki  uniform;  the  countless  forests 
like  scattered  pieces  of  the  somber  garb  cast  off  after  the 
period  of  family  mourning  was  over;  rivers  like  sections  of 
narrow,  faded-black  tape  woven  fantastically  through  the 
pattern  in  ridiculously  snaky  attempts  at  decorative  effect. 
Here  and  there  the  carpet  was  moth-eaten — where  a  crop  of 
hay  had  recently  been  gathered.  A  forest  that  had  lately 
been  turned  into  telegraph  poles  seemed  a  handful  of  matches 
spilled  by  some  careless  smoker;  ponds  and  small  lakes,  the 
holes  burned  by  the  sparks  from  his  pipe. 

We  had  taken  a  rough  road.  Like  all  those  inexperienced 
with  the  element,  I  suppose,  I  had  always  thought  that 
flying  through  the  air  would  be  smoother  than  sailing  the 
calmest  sea  known  to  the  tropical  doldrums. 

348 


FLYING  HOMEWARD 

Experience  left  another  illusion  ruthlessly  shattered.  It 
was  a  fitful,  blustery  day,  with  a  high  wind  that  rocked 
and  tossed  us  about  like  a  dory  on  a  heavy  sea;  moreover, 
at  irregular  intervals  averaging  perhaps  a  minute  apart 
the  machine  struck  an  air  current  that  bounced  us  high  off 
our  precarious  perches  in  the  cockpit  as  a  "thank-you- 
ma'am"  tosses  into  one  another's  laps  the  back-seat  pas- 
sengers in  an  automobile.  The  sickening  drop  just  beyond 
each  such  ridge  in  the  air  road  gave  one  the  same  unpleasant 
sensation  of  vacancy  in  the  middle  of  the  body  that  comes 
with  the  too  sudden  descent  of  an  elevator.  Particularly 
was  this  true  when  the  pilot,  in  jockeying  with  the  playful 
air  waves,  shut  off  his  motor  until  he  had  regained  his  chosen 
altitude.  There  may  be  nothing  more  serious  about  a 
faulty  carburetor  a  thousand  yards  aloft  than  on  the  ground, 
but  the  novice  in  aerial  navigation  is  apt  to  listen  with 
rapt  attention  to  anything  that  ever  so  briefly  suggests 
engine  trouble. 

Yet  none  of  these  little  starts  reached  the  height  of  fear. 
There  was  something  efficient  about  the  ex-raider  who  sat 
at  the  controls  with  all  the  assurance  of  a  long-experienced 
chauffeur  that  would  have  made  fright  seem  absurd.  I 
did  get  cold  feet,  it  is  true,  but  in  the  literal  rather  than  the 
figurative  sense.  After  a  May  of  unbroken  sunshine,  early 
June  had  turned  almost  bitter  cold,  and  the  thin  board  floor 
of  the  cockpit  was  but  slight  protection  against  the  wintry- 
blasts.  Every  now  and  then  we  ran  through  a  rain-storm, 
but  so  swiftly  that  barely  a  drop  touched  us.  Between  them 
the  sun  occasionally  flashed  forth  and  mottled  the  earth- 
carpet  beneath  with  fleeing  cloud  shadows.  Now  the 
clouds  charged  past  close  over  our  heads,  now  we  dived 
headlong  into  them;  when  we  were  clear  of  them  they 
moved  as  does  a  landscape  seen  from  a  swift  train — those 
near  at  hand  sped  swiftly  to  the  rear,  those  farther  off  rode 
slowly  forward,  seeming  to  keep  pace  with  us.  Villages 

349 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

by  the  score  were  almost  constantly  visible,  reddish-gray 
specks  like  rosettes  embroidered  at  irregular  intervals  into 
the  carpet  pattern.  It  made  one  feel  like  a  "Peeping  Tom" 
to  look  down  into  their  domestic  activities  from  aloft.  The 
highways  between  them  seemed  even  more  erratic  in  their 
courses  than  on  the  ground,  and  aroused  still  more  wonder 
than  the  pedestrian  would  have  felt  as  to  what  excuse  they 
found  for  their  strange  deviations.  Gnatlike  men  and 
women  were  everywhere  toiling  in  the  fields  and  only  rarely 
ceased  their  labors  to  glance  upward  as  we  droned  by 
overhead.  Many  enticing  subjects  for  my  kodak  rode 
tantalizingly  southward  into  the  past,  emphasizing  at 
least  one  advantage  of  the  tramp  over  the  passenger  of 
the  air. 

We  landed  at  Leipzig,  girdled  by  its  wide  belt  of  "arbor 
gardens,"  theoretically  to  leave  and  pick  up  mail.  But 
as  there  was  none  in  either  direction  that  morning,  the 
halt  was  really  made  only  to  give  the  pilot  time  to  smoke  a 
cigarette.  That  finished,  we  were  off  again,  rolling  for 
miles  across  a  wheat-field,  then  leaving  the  earth  as  swiftly 
as  it  had  risen  up  to  meet  us  ten  minutes  before.  Landing 
and  departure  seem  to  be  the  most  serious  and  time-losing 
tasks  of  the  airman,  and,  once  more  aloft,  the  pilot  settled 
down  with  the  contentment  of  a  being  returned  again  to  its 
native  element.  As  we  neared  Berlin  the  scene  below 
turned  chiefly  to  sand  and  forest,  with  only  rare,  small 
villages.  One  broad  strip  that  had  been  an  artillery  prov- 
ing-ground  was  pitted  for  miles  as  with  the  smallpox.  To 
my  disappointment,  we  did  not  fly  over  the  capital,  but 
came  to  earth  on  the  arid  plain  of  Johannesthal,  in  the 
southernmost  suburbs,  the  sand  cutting  into  our  faces  like 
stinging  gnats  as  we  snorted  across  it  to  the  cluster  of 
massive  hangars  which  the  machine  seemed  to  recognize 
as  home.  My  companions  took  their  leave  courteously 
but  quickly  and  disappeared  within  their  billets.  Another 

350 


FLYING  HOMEWARD 

middle-aged  woman  despoiled  me  of  my  fly  ing- togs,  re- 
quested me  to  sign  a  receipt  that  I  had  been  duly 
delivered  according  to  the  terms  of  the  contract,  and  a 
swift  automobile  set  me  down,  still  half  deaf  from  the 
roar  of  the  airplane,  at  the  corner  of  Friedrichstrasse 
and  Unter  den  Linden — as  it  would  have  at  any  other 
part  of  Berlin  I  might  have  chosen — just  three  hours 
from  the  time  I  had  been  picked  up  at  my  hotel  in 
Weimar. 

The  capital  was  still  plodding  along  with  that  hungry 
placidity  which  I  had  always  found  there.  Surely  it  is  the 
least  exciting  city  of  its  size  in  the  world,  even  in  the  midst 
of  wars  and  revolutions!  My  total  expenses  during  thirty- 
five  days  within  unoccupied  Germany  summed  up  to  three 
thousand  marks,  a  less  appalling  amount  than  it  would 
have  been  to  a  German,  since  the  low  rate  of  exchange 
reduced  it  to  barely  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars.  Of 
this — and  the  difference  is  worthy  of  comment — eighty 
dollars  had  been  spent  for  food  and  only  sixteen  dollars  for 
lodging.  Transportation  had  cost  me  seventy  dollars  and 
the  rest  had  gone  for  theater- tickets,  photographic  supplies, 
and  the  odds  and  ends  that  the  traveler  customarily  picks 
up  along  the  way  more  or  less  necessarily.  There  remained 
in  my  purse  some  five  hundred  marks  in  war-time  "shin- 
plasters,"  of  scant  value  in  the  world  ahead  even  were  I 
permitted  to  carry  them  over  the  border.  Unfortunately 
the  best  bargains  in  the  Germany  of  1919  were  just  those 
things  that  cannot  be  carried  away — hotel  rooms,  railway 
and  street-car  tickets,  public  baths,  cab  and  taxi  rides, 
theater  and  opera  seats  and  a  few  bulky  commodities  such 
as  paper  or  books.  Perhaps  a  connoisseur  might  have 
picked  up  advantageously  art  treasures,  jewels,  or  the 
curiosities  of  medieval  households,  but  for  one  without  that 
training  there  was  little  choice  but  to  follow  the  lead  of  all 
Allied  officers  leaving  the  capital  and  invest  in  a  pair  of 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

field-glasses.  The  lenses  for  which  Germany  is  famous 
had  greatly  risen  in  price,  but  by  no  means  as  much  as  the 
mark  had  fallen  in  foreign  exchange. 

Only  one  episode  broke  the  monotony  of  the  swift  express 
journey  to  the  Holland  border.  I  gained  a  seat  in  the 
dining-car  at  last,  only  to  discover  that  the  one  possibly 
edible  dish  on  the  bill  of  fare  cost  two  marks  more  than  the 
few  I  had  kept  in  German  currency.  To  change  a  French 
or  Dutch  banknote  would  have  meant  to  load  myself  down 
again  with  useless  Boche  paper  money.  Suddenly  a  brill- 
iant idea  burst  upon  me.  In  my  bag  there  was  still  a 
block  or  two  of  the  French  chocolate  which  I  had  wheedled 
out  of  the  American  commissary  in  Berlin.  I  dug  it  up, 
broke  off  two  inch- wide  sections,  and  held  them  out  toward 
a  cheerful-looking  young  man  seated  on  the  floor  of  the 
corridor. 

"Would  that  be  worth  two  marks  to  you?"  I  asked. 

"Two  marks!"  he  shouted,  snatching  at  the  chocolate 
with  one  hand  while  the  other  dived  for  his  purse.  "Have 
you  any  more  of  it  to  sell?" 

At  least  a  dozen  persons  of  both  sexes  came  to  ask  me  the 
same  question  before  my  brief  dinner  was  over.  Their 
eagerness  aroused  a  curiosity  to  know  just  how  much  they 
would  be  willing  to  pay  for  so  rare  a  delicacy.  I  opened 
my  bag  once  more  and,  taking  out  the  unopened  half- 
pound  that  remained,  laid  it  tantalizingly  on  the  corner  of 
my  table.  If  eyes  could  have  eaten,  it  would  have  dis- 
appeared more  quickly  than  a  scrap  thrown  among  a  flock 
of  seagulls.  When  the  likelihood  of  becoming  the  center 
of  a  riot  seemed  imminent,  I  rose  to  my  feet. 

"Meine  Herrschaften,"  I  began,  teasingly,  "in  a  few  hours 
I  shall  be  in  Holland,  where  chocolate  can  be  had  in  abun- 
dance. It  would  be  a  shame  to  take  this  last  bar  out  of  a 
country  where  it  is  so  scarce.  It  is  genuine  French  choco- 
late, no  'war  wares.'  So  many  of  you  have  wished  to  buy 

352 


FLYING  HOMEWARD 

it  that  I  see  no  just  way  of  disposing  of  it  except  to  put  it 
up  at  auction." 

"Ah,  the  true  American  spirit!"  sneered  at  least  a  half- 
dozen  in  the  same  breath.  "Always  looking  for  a  chance  to 
make  money." 

I  ignored  the  sarcastic  sallies  and  asked  for  bids.  The 
offers  began  at  ten  marks,  rose  swiftly,  and  stopped  a 
moment  later  at  twenty-five.  To  a  German  that  was  still 
the  equivalent  of  ten  dollars.  I  regret  to  report  that  the 
successful  bidder  was  a  disgustingly  fat  Jewess  who  seemed 
least  in  need  of  nourishment  of  the  entire  carload.  The 
cheerful-looking  young  man  who  had  bought  the  first 
morsels  had  been  eager  to  carry  this  prize  to  the  fiancee 
he  was  soon  to  see  for  the  first  time  since  demobilization, 
but  he  had  abandoned  the  race  at  twenty  marks. 

"Now  then,  meine  Damen  und  Herren,"  I  went  on, 
haughtily,  when  the  purchaser  had  tucked  the  chocolate 
into  her  jeweled  arm-bag  with  a  sybaritic  leer  and  laid  the 
specified  sum  before  me,  "I  am  no  war-profiteer,  nor  have  I 
the  soul  of  a  merchant.  These  twenty-five  marks  I  shall 
hand  to  this  gentleman  opposite" — he  had  the  appearance 
of  one  who  could  safely  be  intrusted  with  that  amount — 
"with  the  understanding  that  he  give  it  to  the  first  grand 
blesst  he  meets — the  first  soldier  who  has  lost  an  arm,  a 
leg,  or  an  eye." 

The  expressions  of  praise  that  arose  on  all  sides  grew 
maudlin.  The  trustee  I  had  chosen  ceremoniously  wrote 
his  address  on  a  visiting-card  and  handed  it  to  the  Jewess, 
requesting  hers  in  return,  and  promising  to  forward  a  receipt 
signed  by  the  recipient  of  the  "noble  American  benefac- 
tion." Then  he  fell  into  conversation  with  me,  learned 
the  purpose  that  had  brought  me  to  Germany,  and  im- 
plored me  to  continue  to  Essen  with  him,  where  he  was 
connected  with  the  Krupp  factories.  He  would  see  to  it 
that  I  was  received  by  Herr  von  Krupp-Bohlen  himself — 

353 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

the  husband  of  Frau  Bertha  whom  the  Kaiser  had  permitted 
to  saddle  himself  with  the  glorious  family  name — and 
that  I  be  conducted  into  every  corner  of  the  plant,  a  priv- 
ilege which  had  been  accorded  no  Allied  correspondent 
since  the  war  began.  His  pleas  grew  almost  tearful  in 
spite  of  my  reminder  that  time  and  transatlantic  steamers 
wait  for  no  man.  The  world,  he  blubbered,  had  a  wholly 
false  notion  of  the  great  Krupps  of  Essen.  They  were  really 
overflowing  with  charity.  Were  they  not  paying  regular 
wages  to  almost  their  war-time  force  of  workmen,  though 
there  was  employment  for  only  a  small  fraction  of  them? 
It  was  high  time  a  fair-minded  report  wiped  out  the  slanders 
that  had  been  heaped  upon  a  noble  family  and  establish- 
ment by  the  wicked  Allied  propagandists.  Essen  at  least 
would  never  be  troubled  with  labor  agitators  and  Sparticist 
uprisings.  .  .  . 

We  reached  Bentheim  on  the  frontier  at  four.  Most  of 
my  companions  of  the  chocolate  episode  had  been  left 
behind  with  the  change  of  cars  at  Lohne,  and  the  coaches 
now  disgorged  a  throng  of  fat,  prosperous-looking  Hollanders. 
War  and  suffering,  after  all,  are  good  for  the  soul,  one  could 
not  but  reflect,  at  the  sudden  change  from  the  adversity- 
tamed  Germans  to  these  gross,  red-faced,  paunchy,  over- 
fed Dutchmen,  who,  though  it  be  something  approaching 
heresy  to  say  so,  perhaps,  were  far  less  agreeable  to  every 
sense,  who  had  something  in  their  manner  that  suggested 
that  their  acquaintance  was  not  worth  cultivating.  My 
last  chance  for  a  German  adventure  had  come.  Unless  the 
frontier  officials  at  Bentheim  visited  their  wrath  upon  me 
in  some  form  or  other,  my  journey  through  the  Fatherland 
would  forever  remain  like  the  memory  of  a  Sunday-school 
picnic  in  the  crater  of  an  extinct  volcano — a  picnic  to  which 
most  of  the  party  had  neglected  to  bring  their  lunch-baskets, 
and  where  the  rest  had  spilled  their  scant  fare  several 
times  in  the  sand  and  ashes  along  the  way. 

354 


FLYING  HOMEWARD 

The  same  dapper  young  lieutenant  and  grizzled  old 
sergeant  of  five  weeks  before  still  held  the  station  gate. 
Apparently  neither  of  them  recognized  me  as  a  former 
acquaintance.  At  any  rate,  they  showed  no  curiosity  to 
know  how  I  had  managed  to  spend  that  length  of  time  on  a 
little  journey  to  Hamburg.  Perhaps  the  stamp  of  the 
Foreign  Office  on  my  passport  left  them  no  choice  but  to 
hold  their  peace.  The  customs  inspector  was  a  bit  more 
inquisitive.  He  rummaged  through  my  hamper  with  the 
manner  of  one  accustomed  to  do  his  duty  to  the  letter, 
at  the  same  time  desiring  to  know  how  much  German 
money  the  gentleman  was  carrying  with  him.  A  placard 
on  the  wall  warned  travelers  that  no  gold,  only  three  marks 
in  silver,  and  not  more  than  fifty  marks  in  paper  could  be 
taken  out  of  the  country.  Those  who  had  more  than  that 
amount  were  the  losers,  for  though  the  frontier  guards  gave 
French  or  Dutch  paper  in  return  for  what  they  took  away,  it 
was  at  a  far  less  advantageous  rate  of  exchange  than  that  in 
the  open  market.  The  inspector  accepted  my  assertion  of 
marklessness  without  question,  but  in  the  mean  time  he 
had  brought  to  light  the  spiked  helmet  that  had  been  given 
me  in  Schwerin.  His  face  took  on  an  expression  of  puzzled 
amusement. 

"So!  You  are  taking  it  with  you?"  he  chuckled,  in  a 
tone  implying  the  belief  that  it  had  decorated  my  own  head 
during  the  war. 

"It  was  given  me  as  a  souvenir,"  I  replied.  "I  am  an 
American." 

"So!"  he  rumbled  again,  looking  up  at  me  with  an  air 
of  surprise — ' '  American ! ' ' 

He  turned  the  helmet  over  several  times  in  his  hands, 
apparently  deep  in  thought,  then  tucked  it  uown  into  the 
hamper  again  and  closed  the  lid. 

"We-ell,"  he  said,  slowly,  "take  it  along.  We  don't  need 
them  any  more." 

355 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

There  was  but  one  barrier  left  between  me  and  freedom. 
Judging  from  the  disheveled  appearance  of  the  fat  Hol- 
landers who  emerged,  after  long  delay  in  every  case,  from 
the  little  wooden  booths  along  the  wall,  the  personal  search 
that  awaited  me  would  be  exacting  and  thorough.  One 
could  not  expect  them  to  take  my  word  for  it  that  I  had 
no  German  money  or  other  forbidden  valuables  concealed 
about  my  person.  Yet  that  was  exactly  what  they  did. 
True,  five  weeks  of  knocking  about  in  a  "hand-me-down" 
that  had  been  no  fit  costume  for  attending  a  court  function 
in  the  first  place  had  not  left  me  the  appearance  of  a  walking 
treasury.  But  frontier  officials  commonly  put  less  faith 
in  the  outward  aspect  of  their  victims  than  did  the  courteous 
German  soldier  who  dropped  his  hands  at  his  sides  as  I 
mentioned  my  nationality  and  opened  the  door  again  with- 
out laying  a  finger  upon  me. 

"Happy  journey,"  he  smiled,  as  I  turned  away,  "and — 
and  when  you  get  back  to  America  tell  them  to  send  us 
more  food." 

My  last  hope  of  adventure  had  faded  away,  and  Germany 
lay  behind  me.  At  Oldenzaal  the  Dutch  were  more  exact- 
ing in  their  formalities  than  their  neighbors  had  been,  but 
they  admitted  me  without  any  other  opposition  than  the 
racial  leisureliness  that  caused  me  to  miss  the  evening  train. 
A  stroll  through  the  frontier  village  was  like  walking  through 
a  teeming  market-place  after  escape  from  a  desert  island. 
The  shop-windows  bulged  with  every  conceivable  species 
of  foodstuffs — heaps  of  immense  fat  sausages,  suspended 
carcasses  of  well-fed  cattle,  calves,  sheep,  and  hogs,  huge 
wooden  pails  of  butter,  overflowing  baskets  of  eggs,  hillocks 
of  chocolate  and  sweets  of  every  description,  countless 
cans  of  cocoa.  ...  I  had  almost  forgotten  that  nature, 
abetted  by  industry,  supplied  mankind  with  such  abundance 
and  variety  of  appetizing  things.  I  restrained  with  diffi- 
culty my  impulse  to  buy  of  everything  in  sight. 

356 


FLYING  HOMEWARD 

At  the  hotel  that  evening  the  steak  that  was  casually 
set  before  me  would  have  instigated  a  riot  in  Berlin.  More- 
over, it  was  surrounded  by  a  sea  of  succulent  gravy.  I 
could  not  recall  ever  having  seen  a  drop  of  gravy 
in  all  Germany.  When  I  paid  my  bill,  bright  silver  coins 
were  handed  me  as  change.  A  workman  across  the  room 
lighted  a  fat  cigar  as  nonchalantly  as  if  they  grew  on  the 
trees  outside  the  window.  Luxurious  private  automobiles 
rolled  past  on  noiseless  rubber  tires. 

In  the  train  next  morning  the  eye  was  instantly  attracted 
to  the  window-straps  of  real  leather,  to  the  perfect  con- 
dition of  the  seat-cushions.  A  German  returning  to  his 
pre-war  residence  in  Buenos  Aires  with  his  Argentine  wife 
and  two  attractive  daughters,  whom  I  had  met  at  table  the 
evening  before,  insisted  that  I  share  his  compartment  with 
them.  He  had  spent  three  months  and  several  thousand 
marks  to  obtain  his  passports,  and  the  authorities  at  the 
border  had  forced  him  to  leave  behind  all  but  the  amount 
barely  sufficient  to  pay  his  expenses  to  his  destination. 
The  transplanted  wife  was  far  more  pro-German  in  her 
utterances  than  her  husband,  and  flayed  the  "wicked 
Allies"  ceaselessly  in  her  fiery  native  tongue.  During  all 
the  journey  the  youngest  daughter,  a  girl  of  sixteen  whose 
unqualified  beauty  highly  sanctioned  this  particular  mixt- 
ure of  races,  sat  huddled  together  in  her  corner  like  a 
statue  of  bodily  suffering.  Only  once  that  morning  did 
she  open  her  faultless  lips.  At  my  expression  of  solicitude 
she  turned  her  breath-taking  countenance  toward  me  and 
murmured  in  a  tone  that  made  even  German  sound  musical : 

"You  see,  we  have  not  been  used  to  rich  food  in  Germany 
since  I  was  a  child,  and — and  last  night  I  ate  so  much!" 

The  stern  days  of  the  Kaiser's  regime,  with  their  depress- 
ing submergence  of  personal  liberty,  would  seem  to  have 
faded  away.  During  all  my  weeks  of  wandering  at  large 
throughout  the  Fatherland  not  once  did  a  guardian  of  the 

357 


VAGABONDING  THROUGH  CHANGING  GERMANY 

law  so  much  as  whisper  in  my  ear.  In  contrast,  during 
twenty-four  hours  in  Holland  I  was  twice  taken  in  charge 
by  detectives — it  seems  they  were  looking  for  a  "bird" 
named  Vogel — once  in  the  streets  of  Oldenzaal  and  again 
as  I  descended  from  the  train  at  Rotterdam. 


THE   END 


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